


The Sun Is A Fading Star

by AntigravityDevice



Series: A Lightless Deep And A Starry Space [4]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alien Technology, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Drama, Friends With Benefits, Mass Effect 3: Leviathan, Mentions of EDI/Joker, Mentions of EDI/Samantha Traynor, Mentions of Gabriella Daniels/Kenneth Donnelly, Mentions of Liara/Female Shepard, Mind Control, Minor Character Death, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 00:57:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 51,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntigravityDevice/pseuds/AntigravityDevice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are older and more enigmatic forces in the galaxy than the Reapers. It's their turn to rise from the depths, and those Shepard has left behind must unite to face the new challenge. But Samantha Traynor has a plan, and through loss and suffering, bonds are formed that cannot be broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The beam to the Citadel was dead ahead, rising into the sky. Looking right at it burned Vega's vision into a white mess, but you couldn't ask for a clearer goal than that. The soldiers around him rushed and stumbled, all of them half-blind, but they stumbled towards it.

Then the Reaper’s merciless beam came at them again. Everything became noise and desperation and heat that seeped through armour. Tanks flew and exploded, but no one stopped running when the debris rained down if it didn't fall on them. He heard Liara stumble and go down with a broken cry. Before he could turn to help her, an explosion slammed him sideways into a pile of rubble. His armor's sensors kicked in at the same time as the pain. Just some damage. He could still move.

Shepard came running towards them, in the wrong direction, and dove behind what was left of a tank to wait while another red beam licked the ground. Liara made a pained noise when Shepard helped her up. Her jacket was smoking, and her blood began to show through it in places. Vega was the next to be pulled to his feet. He couldn't help thinking this was a stupid goddamn move. Shepard should be running. Getting to the Citadel was all that mattered. It was what they were here for.

But that had never been the kind of commander Shepard was. She called for an evac, in the middle of the hellfire, and the Normandy answered the call so fast it gave Vega new respect for Joker's piloting.

Vega couldn't draw breath, couldn't think, could only follow. His armor was broken in too many places, and his extremities were dull and tingling from all the Medigel he was swimming in.

"Take her," Shepard said, quiet but clear even through the thunderous noise.

Liara's arm was bloody and slipped out of Vega's grasp when he first tried to grab her, but at least she could raise it. Vega held her up, waiting for someone to come in and take her to the med bay, but the few soldiers providing covering fire had their hands full. He hadn't put down his rifle. Didn't intend to.

Then he realized Shepard wasn't just saving their asses, she was saying goodbye.

"Go!" Shepard ordered. Vega found himself taking steps up the ramp in spite of himself, dragging Liara with him.

Obeying his commander came automatically to him. It was gene-deep, an instinct that kicked in through the pain and the Medigel haze and the adrenaline. It didn't keep him from feeling like he was being torn in half. He shouldn't let Shepard go on alone. Why was it always a choice of abandoning one and saving the other?

The ramp closed and robbed him of the last remnants of choice in the matter. 

Liara's arm was still outstretched, blood dripping from her delicate blue fingertips. "Yours," she repeated into the air.

Vega's breath raked at this throat even as his pulse was starting to settle. Liara was still gasping. No wonder. He tried to find a good way to hold her, careful not to move her too much. They'd both been battered and burned pretty good, but she wasn't in heavy armor.

"C'mon," he said, his voice hoarse. "C'mon, Doc."

He hoped he wouldn't have to carry her. His side throbbed, and bits of armor dug in between his ribs, above his hip. He'd have new scars. When she turned to look at him, only then seeming to realize he was there, her eyes were biotic-blue, her expression calm even through the tears.

Shit, forget about carrying her. He'd be happy if she didn't slam him into the wall.

All she did was nod and straighten her spine, her gaze turning glassy when Vega led her towards Dr. Chakwas's care. More than anything, he wanted to run to the bridge and find Ash, steadfast Alliance LC Ash who didn't mince words, to get an update and new orders. He hadn't yet recovered from Shepard's last order, but already he was feeling lost. This wasn't how it should've gone. He wasn't supposed to quit on the last stretch.

_Take her. Go._

They both felt it under the soles of their boots when Joker pulled a crazy turn and took them up and away. Away from Shepard. No, getting out of here wasn't the crazy move; diving down for an evac in the middle of a full-on Reaper invasion was, but you didn't say no to Shepard.

"I need to see what's going on," Liara said. Her voice vibrated with resolve. "I need to know she made it there. Please. I'm all right."

Hell, he wasn't proud of himself for it, but that was all it took. "You sure?"

"I'll be fine. As long as I can lean on you." 

Support. He could do that. "Okay. If you say so. Just slap some Medigel on. She wouldn't want you bleedin' yourself pale."

Liara took his arm when he offered it. It was much easier to walk together than drag her around.

*

By the time they reached the CIC, they were more or less leaning on each other, stumbling with every maneuver Joker pulled. An ensign hurried past with a datapad for Traynor, and Vega almost lost his footing from her nudge. Shit, he needed to get his head together. He blinked and tried to focus. Every light was a Reaper beam, burning the backs of his eyes.

Traynor seemed to have no trouble keeping her head on straight. "Thank you, Wexler. Kastalion, I'm establishing a secure re-routing channel for your communications. Twenty-two seconds. Yes, that's an estimate. Working on it, sir." She muttered something uncharitable about turians to herself while her fingers danced over the datapages. It was the only sign of exhaustion she showed.

Liara stopped to try to get her attention. "Have you heard anything f--"

Traynor raised a hand in Liara's direction without looking up. The confident way she commanded her post was reassuring in the middle of the chaos. "Just a second, Dr. T'Soni. Yes, Kastalion? Your channel is secured. Yes, sir, I am. Normandy out." She made a frustrated noise, bringing up a new screen on her terminal. "I swear the next time he asks me if I'm _sure_ he's getting something shoved up his channel. EDI, can you please forward the next... four cross-fleet hails to the SSV Adelaide? Thank you." 

Traynor exhaled and finally turned to face them. Worry showed in her eyes immediately. They must've looked rough, straight from the ground battle.

"Shepard," Liara insisted. "Did she reach the beam? Did anyone reach the beam to the Citadel?"

"I was going to ask you that," Traynor said, her voice dropping. "I'm swamped at the moment, and EDI's sorting through the comm chatter--"

"Admiral Hackett has just confirmed that the Commander did make it to the Citadel," EDI put in through the comm terminal. "I've now sent on two communications from the quarian carrier Marmaya. I strongly suggest you answer their next call, Samantha."

She reacted to the news, or the use of her first name, with a twitch of a smile. "Thank you, EDI." 

Noting how stiffly Liara held her arm, Vega decided he'd waited long enough with the Medigel. She barely seemed to notice what he was doing, but he tried not to be rough. He couldn't do anything more for her than a quick patch-up, anyway. 

Concentrating on the task at hand meant that it took the information a minute to get through to him. Shepard had made it. Hope sank into him like a steady weight, grounding him.

The terminal blinked distress, and Traynor hastily flicked her comm channels open again, her attention turning back to her work. "Sorry, I have to keep data running if we want to keep the Crucible safe for... Yes, Marmaya, this is Comm Specialist Traynor of the SSV Normandy, and I think I know what your problem is. Your data packaging could probably use an upgrade. Let me patch you through to Specialist Ophik."

Liara jumped when Vega patted her good arm. "There. All done."

"Thank you," she said, automatically. She seemed too distracted to register any pain or the lack of it. He knew how that went, the mind going places while the body sort of tagged along. It must have been even more profound a separation for the asari. A part of her was where all their hopes were: beaming up to the Citadel.

They made their way up to the bridge past the busy ensigns. 

"Where's Ash?" Vega asked, not bothering with niceties. They were too busy for those.

The helmsman's screens and the open shutters showed a good slice of the battle outside. It looked eerily quiet and slow, after the ground attack. As a ship exploded to their right, the Normandy made a smooth turn around a quarian vessel. 

Joker opened a datapage and piled it on top of his regular screen. "She went to check out the hull breach in sector three. Got scraped when I dipped down to fetch you guys. You're welcome, by the way."

Vega and Liara shared an uncomfortable look. He knew it for a fact when he met Liara's calm blue eyes: they would've both given an arm and a leg to stay with Shepard. Maybe Joker knew that, though. His sense of humor was twisted like that.

"The situation is currently non-critical and the damage to the ship within acceptable parameters," EDI reported. 

She caught a datapage that Joker tossed her way, her fingers moving over its holo-surface. The two of them worked like... well, as smoothly as you'd expect. Weren't a lot of flyboys who could actually say they were dating their best ship.

The bridge was as good a place as any to wait for Ash to come back. Liara leaned on the back of Joker's chair, and once he had his arm free, Vega couldn't resist poking at the damage to his armor. Even through the Medigel, it made him wince. Someone with an omni-tool would probably have to fish all the armor pieces out of him.

His thoughts strayed to Cortez, shot down somewhere in what used to be London. He hoped he'd reached an outpost by now. That he wasn't alone. _Dios_ , if anyone asked him to leave someone _else_ behind, he'd knock their fucking teeth in. Vega made himself breathe deep and shoved those thoughts back where they belonged for now, and drew his rifle for no reason, just wanting its familiar weight and shape settling against his palm.

Admiral Hackett's voice on the comm forced his mind back to the fight. The fleets gathered to cover the Crucible's approach, abandoning their own defensive maneuvers in order to make the path clear and keep it so until the Citadel arms would open. Vega swallowed through a dry throat. Down on the ground, he could take a banshee by the neck and fire his way through a wave after wave of husks, and not think twice about dying. This was calculated, not adrenaline-driven. None of the ships he saw might make it, and the commanders knew it. They did it anyway, throwing themselves against the Reaper forces that burned them and their crews into ash and space junk. It made for a grim spectacle, but none of them looked away.

This wasn't how the war would end. He gritted his teeth. Not with a slow and total defeat, while he stood there watching, the rifle cold in his hand.

Someone approached him, and he turned around, expecting Ashley. Traynor let out a startled breath. Oh. The rifle. Right. She had abandoned her comm terminal, drawn closer by the sight of the Crucible closing in. Vega lowered the rifle and made her room. She moved to stand behind EDI, her eyes glued to the chaos that Joker was navigating through. Her fist was pressed against her mouth.

Liara gasped and pointed. When the Normandy steadied its flight again, Vega saw it too. The Citadel was moving, opening like a steel flower. Traynor made a relieved noise; Liara whispered her thanks to the Goddess.

Joker's hand stilled mid-maneuver. "Holy shit. Did it... holy shit."

"Ten seconds to contact," Admiral Hackett said on the comm. The Crucible shed its outer shieldings and glided into place like it knew where it belonged. Maybe it did. That thing had taken thousands of years to be finished; millions, for all Vega knew. 

"That's it! The Crucible is docked!"

For a minute, Vega could hear everyone on the bridge breathing. Hoping.

Nothing happened.

"It's not..." Joker started, giving voice to the obvious, and fell quiet again.

It seemed they were all on the verge, waiting for the order to jump. Vega saw the battle went on:EDI and Joker's hands moved as they dodged Reaper fire, but everything else felt muted compared to the strange shape of the Crucible and the Citadel, joined and silent.

He kept on hoping, so hard his pulse hurt. Shepard had to finish it. There was no one else.

*

"I'm detecting an energy surge at the Crucible." EDI’s voice broke what felt like hours of silence. Vega thought he heard genuine joy in her voice as the datapages in front of her flickered in confirmation.

He let out the breath he'd been holding. His upper lip tasted salty with cold sweat. The heady relief almost floored him. Shepard had set fire to the bastard. She'd done it.

"The Crucible is preparing for detonation. Planning a route towards the mass relay."

There had been no word from Shepard. Joker bit back a curse as a crashing turian cruiser scraped too close to them and shook the whole ship. He gave EDI a look, desperate and torn. Vega recognized it well enough. He fell back against the wall, drawing a deep and raspy breath. He didn't feel the victory yet, just bewilderment, and his side hurt worse the more he stayed still. He squeezed the rifle's handle tighter.

"All fleets!" He couldn't understand how Hackett kept his voice so steady. Came with being an admiral, maybe. "The Crucible is armed. Disengage and head to the rendezvous point."

Joker wasn't taking them out of the defensive position where they were at, though, just dodged and spun them around. Ships started disappearing from around them. EDI had stopped following her own screens, and was looking at Joker, mouth open as if preparing to say something before the admiral spoke over her.

"I repeat, disengage and get the hell out of here!"

It was Liara who stepped forward after exchanging a glance with Traynor. "Joker, we have to go," she said, voice soft and sensible. She lay her injured hand on Joker's shoulder. Her blood had already dried dark.

It must have hurt her to say it. Vega knew the plan like they all did, but it hadn't even occurred to him that Shepard wouldn't be here with them, that they'd have to leave her behind. They were her crew.

Joker hesitated. "Dammit," he mumbled, but Liara didn't let go.

"Jeff," EDI said, and Vega got the impression that she spoke only to him, the rest of them be damned. "The energy amassing at the Crucible is formidable. I'm unable to calculate its impact. Please. Help me save the Normandy again."

Joker's jaw was set, his whole face tense. He flipped open a navigation page and punched in the coordinates. He didn't look at EDI, but reached out for her hand. She gave it readily, grasping his wrist instead of his fingers. A strong hold.

Before the ship turned around, Vega could see the Crucible gathering power. It glowed like a rising fire, flames just starting to leap up. He prayed to whatever god or power in the universe that listened that it would work. This damn war had cost enough. He wanted the Reapers burned and gone. He wanted total destruction. He wanted an end.

When they approached the relay, tailing behind the fleets, fire licking at their heels, his stomach lurched in horrible uncertainty. Were they scampering off without making sure they had done decisive damage, and leaving everyone behind to face the wrath of the Reapers on their own? If it did work, would there even be anyone left on Earth once the Crucible was done?

These were the risks. He should've known all this coming in. But he was too goddamn focused on the here and now. It didn't fit right with him to do guesswork when there was something concrete he could be doing. And now there was nothing left for him to do.

"Hold on!" Joker called out, as the stars stretched out into blue streaks. "I'm getting some crazy readings. This could be a bumpy ride."

"Jeff," EDI said, voice level as always, "the detonation wave is reaching us. It appears to have jumped through the mass relay with u--"

That was as far as she got before the screens blinked imminent danger.

"Everybody brace yourselves!" Joker threw all their propulsion engines into overdrive. The dampeners could barely handle the sudden throw forward. The ship shook, caught between forces that threatened to tear its shielding apart.

Even the Normandy's fastest wasn't fast enough. Vega looked behind them, and could actually see the red, glowing wall travelling through the ship like it was scanning them. He braced himself on the monitor behind him and closed his eyes when it washed over the bridge in a vast wave. It jostled every sensor in his armor, scrambling them before they readjusted. He heard people scream as the power hummed low and then surged up again.

When he blinked his eyes open, he saw Traynor stumbling onto her feet next to him. 

"What the hell was that?" Her precise accent collided with the exasperated swearing in a way he couldn't help but find kind of hot. It was a weird thing to focus on, but he latched onto anything that would help him get reorientated. "EDI? Are we - are we still on course?"

There was no answer. Vega saw the silver arm hanging limply over the armrest of EDI's chair. Shit. Her platform had taken some damage. He'd really liked that platform, too.

Joker's both hands were working so fast he could barely follow their movements. "EDI - shit - shit shit shit--"

Liara found her feet as well, but they were unsteady. "Joker?"

"I can't get through to EDI," he mumbled through a tight throat, as if to himself. "I'm flying half- _blind_ , and she just went offline. Just like that."

"I'll help you." Traynor jolted into action. "Let me - I'll run a diagnostic on EDI, but first, I have to jump-restart the comm network."

"Power fluctuations in engineering, building up to an overload!" Joker punched his fist through the holo page. If it had been a concrete screen, he would have broken half the bones in his hand. "I can't - There's nothing I can do! I can't stabilize the power surges on time without her!"

Traynor made a helpless noise, her fingers tapping furiously on the omni-tool screen. "It'll take at least a few minutes to get the comms working again. There's no way to warn them!"

Vega was already running.

*

There was no point even heading to the elevator. Luckily he was more than familiar with the emergency ladders. They made a handy shortcut to the shuttle bay, and now, they helped him evade the other people running to and fro, yelling into silent comm links. He could feel momentum snatching at him as he half-climbed, half-fell down levels. They were still flying in FTL, which meant they hadn't reached the rendezvous point. Where the hell had the relay thrown them? Those things weren't supposed to go rogue.

When he reached engineering, he almost fell on top of a shocked ensign who was trying to climb up. He jumped down and gave the guy some room in the emergency tunnel. The man’s uniform was scorched, sticking to his chest.

"It's not safe here! Get up to the CIC and report the situation!" Vega kept it short and snappy. It worked like a charm; the guy started climbing instead of standing there gaping. Good old Alliance training.

Then an explosion threw him back, slapping him in the face with hot air. His boots stuck to the floor and held him upright. The floor shook like an earthquake were working its way through the ship. Through the smoke, he saw electrical fires trying to spread from the engine room. Someone was doing their best to put them out, but most of the crew were stumbling out of their way. At least four people were down, from what he could tell. Vega pushed himself to move, catching a glimpse of a familiar face in the chaos. Adams. He was coughing and disoriented, but Vega didn't see any injuries. He pointed him and the two others still standing to the emergency ladder. He wished the comms worked. Some idea about the clock he was working against would've been nice. 

"Somebody help!" The voice was ragged, breaking into coughs. It came from the direction of the engine room.

The engines could blow up in his face, but he turned around and ran towards them regardless. The door was jammed in place, but it gave after a couple of hard tugs. The smell of burned circuitry trickled into his nostrils, and once he realized how thick the smoke was, he folded on his helmet and engaged the sensors. He found his target quicker through heat than vision.

It was one of the engineers, trying to drag up the unmoving body of her colleague. Vega almost tripped on the twisted metal junk around the two. She had probably dug him up from under it.

"You okay?" He tried to help haul her up; she clung to her colleague. "C'mon, we have to go! Now!"

She turned to look at him, and he recognized her through the smoke. Daniels. They'd never spoken much; she didn't seem the talkative type, usually spending her rec time down in engineering. Her eyes were wild, mostly from shock but there was a fair amount of pain there as well. A sharp piece of shrapnel stuck out of her thigh.

"My leg... I can't... Please, you have to help me move him! Please!"

Vega was glad the helmet didn't show his reaction. The entire front of the man was burned so bad he couldn't even tell who it was. There was no time, though. He lifted him up with a little grunt. The engine's whirring was getting louder again, reminding him that they were standing way too close to it, and there was a warning in the flashes of wayward energy that lit up the room.

"Can you run?"

Daniels nodded, mouth a tight line. "I can limp!"

The floor shook again as they stumbled back to the corridor. This rumble was ominous, promising a hell of a blow-out. Vega pushed Daniels to run ahead of him, ignoring the way she shouted out in pain when she put weight on her injured leg. All that mattered was the emergency tunnel. If they could reach it in time, get the door between them and the explosion...

He felt the fire at his back, and threw himself and the engineers the rest of the way. They tumbled into the narrow tunnel. She slammed her hand on the door controls, closing the thick door before the fire could engulf them. Then she slumped down and let out a few tired sobs. Her leg gleamed with fresh blood, way too much of it. The whole ship seemed to buck, tossing them about for a minute before finally settling.

"The others." Vega tried to catch his breath. He ached all over. His armor was well and truly fucked beyond repair. "Were there... any others? Javik? Sparks--Tali? Is she..."

Daniels hauled herself over to her friend, and checked his pulse with shaky fingers. "No. They were heading up to the CIC, to, to see Commander Williams. Oh, God. Oh, God, Kenneth. We have to get him up to the med bay, quickly."

She started to get up, but her leg gave out, pushing up fresh blood again. Vega folded away his helmet and caught her. "Whoa. Easy."

"There's no time!"

Their argument was cut short by the buzzing of the comm link. "This is Lieutenant Commander Williams, acting XO. Comm systems are back online. Everybody stay calm. The Normandy's survived the emergency landing with minimal hull damage. We'll soon have the fires under control. I repeat, everybody stay calm and wait for orders."

It was an awkward sort of speech, especially after listening to Admiral Hackett, but damn if Ash's voice wasn't honey to his ears. They would be all right now that Williams had taken charge. She was the type who got things done. Funny how the fact that she didn't sound at all like an officer made him feel even better.

Emergency landing? So that was what had almost made him jump out of his armor.

"Hey, Ash," he said into the comm link. To hell with rank, he was too tired to pretend he hadn't held back her hair while she puked up mescal. "Good to hear your voice. I'm in engineering, emergency tunnel entrance. I've got two people who need medical attention, stat."

"Just the two of you?" was her answer.

"No, I--" Vega found himself smiling, stupidly, despite everything. Only adrenaline could make him move, and he suspected he was running low on that, too. "Okay. Yeah. Three people. Hurry, yeah?"

Engineer Daniels was counting under her breath, pressing on her colleague's - friend's - burned chest. Vega tried to decide between helping her or telling her to stop. He slumped down, and then he thought about asking Ash what the hell was taking so long.

He stopped thinking pretty soon after that, his head filling with white noise.

*

The first thing he saw when his eyes blinked open was a palm leaf, swaying in the breeze. It was so bizarre he squeezed his eyes closed and tried the whole waking up thing again. No, there it was, a goddamn palm tree. He felt the breeze that moved it, too, warm and pleasant against his face. He was lying on an elevated stretcher in the shade. Two women were talking somewhere nearby.

"...when she comes back. Okay? Can I get you anything?"

"Look, can you please not... I... I'm sorry. I can't stand fussing right now. I just can't."

"Sorry. God. I hate being fussed over, too. Would you like me to go?"

"Yeah. I'd like to stay with him for a bit, if that's okay."

"Of course. I'll bring your food here when it's done."

"I... okay."

Vega was pretty sure the woman who walked off had been Traynor. Her steps were soft, and it sounded like the ground was covered in gravel, or sand. The air smelled green and fresh, but there was smoke mixed in, too.

"Where the hell are we?" he asked aloud, and sat up. He was in his underwear. His armor had been peeled off, his wounds bound and treated. There was a drip attached to his arm, but it just seemed to be for rehydration. The inside of his head hummed and thumped like an old engine warming up.

Engineer Daniels met his gaze wearily. In the middle of the lush vegetation, she looked like a ghost, pale and cried-out, in her sooty uniform. Her leg was in a splint and the wound was safely hidden under a Medigel patch. There was another stretcher next to Vega's, and she was leaning heavily on the side of it. The body lying on the stretcher was scorched, but someone had washed his face so that Vega recognized engineer Donnelly. Shitty-at-poker Donnelly. There were no patches or drips attached to him. His chest didn't move.

"Oh. Shit." Vega thought about touching her shoulder, then thought better of it. "I'm sorry."

"You did your best," she said. Her voice was hollow. "Thanks for getting me out of there."

" _De nada_ ," Vega managed, and they both fell silent.

They appeared to be in some kind of a glade-turned-med bay with half a dozen others, all unconscious, surrounded by palm trees - or what had at first looked like palm trees. The bark was a little too smooth, and the leaves were tinted blue. There was a newly beaten path leading out into the thicket. After a while, Vega tugged off the drip, found his fatigues and decided to follow it.

His bare feet made contact with the sandy ground. It felt unbelievably nice. He couldn't remember the last time he'd walked around without his boots. Even the cut tree chunks and vegetation felt great against the skin of his feet.

The palm tree forest didn't go on for long before opening into a wide plain. The Normandy's hull dominated the view. It gleamed in the sun, majestic even though there was still smoke rising from the worst damage spots. He couldn't have been out for that long. A team was working around the thrusters, and other crewmen were scattered around, bringing out equipment or setting up communication towers. There was no grass anywhere, but there were fern-like plants, which had been gathered up into piles for people to sit on. Dr. Chakwas was kneeling next to someone, scanning their torn-up hand. Javik ran past, too quickly to be asked anything.

He spotted Traynor next to the half-erected communication tower. "Hey, Cotorra. Where's Ash? Is she okay?"

Apart from a few scrapes, Traynor looked unharmed. She closed her omni-tool. "Oh, uh... Lieutenant Vega. Hello. I didn't know you were awake."

He made an attempt at a smile. "Just James."

"James. Got it." Under other circumstances she might've smiled back. She was deadly serious now, though. She sighed and wiped sweat from her brow. It was quite warm in the direct sunlight. It couldn't have been very late in the day. "I'd check with Dr. Chakwas if I were you, when she has a minute."

"Will do. So. Ash?"

"In the CIC, talking with Joker." A frown made her look even more exhausted. "I... wouldn't go in there right now."

"Thanks for the warning," he said, and headed towards the ship's open ramp.

The Normandy was eerily quiet. He almost asked EDI to confirm that Ash was in the CIC, but then remembered she'd gone offline before the crash. Better let her recover in peace. He didn't know what was involved in something like that, but a total system reboot couldn't be easy for an AI with multiple platforms. He hadn't seen her walking about, so she must've started with the Normandy part.

He walked straight into the middle of a heated argument.

"And I said forget about it, okay?" Joker barked, holding onto his side. He never looked very steady on his feet, but now it seemed his stubborness was the only thing keeping him up. His face was pale.

Ashley's armor was scuffed in a couple of places, but she was still in it. Her hair was swept back into a neat bun. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her jaw set. "Don't make me pull rank on you, Joker. We've known each other too long for that bullshit." Her tone softened. "You know I'm right. We need to get back into Alliance space. And you're the only pilot I've got."

Vega winced a little at the reminder. Earth. He needed to know what had happened to it. Ashley would know, if anyone.

Joker swept his hand over his face. His eyes were red-rimmed. "I..."

"Take your time. But then I want you to take the navigation charts and work out a route for us. Okay? You wouldn't want anyone else piloting the Normandy anyway, would you?"

His eyes flashed sudden anger. "That's my girlfriend's _corpse_ you're talking about!"

"And I want you to take it out of here." Ashley looked away and sighed. "I'm sorry, Joker. If there were any other options, I'd give them to you."

Joker bit down so hard Vega could see his jaw working. "Fuck you," he ground out, and hobbled towards the bridge.

Ashley let him go, and then nodded to Vega, motioning for him to walk with her outside.

"So, what's the situation?"

Ashley seemed to appreciate getting straight to business. "We've had some luck. The Normandy is largely intact. The tech people say they'll have her engines running again by tomorrow. Garrus and Tali are down in engineering right now, giving it their best shot. That's hardware, though. I... don't know what we'll do about the software part. You heard Joker, right? EDI's... offline."

He shrugged. "So boot her up again. Doesn't sound like we're in a hurry, anyway."

"No, it's..." Ashley searched for words. "As I understand it... she's gone. For good. Her data stores are there, but she's not. That detonation wave, or whatever it was, wiped her out."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Vega stopped and raised his hands. "You mean she's _dead_?"

Her back straightened. "She's not the only one."

Vega felt a cold lump forming in his guts. His side started aching again, now that he was standing still. "Shit. How many?"

"Three. Engineers Kenneth Donnelly and Rizvan Nejem. Corporal Hanne Arvidsen." A lock of hair escaped her bun. She pushed it behind her ear.

"Shepard?" Vega dared to ask, quietly. "Have you heard if..."

"No, nothing gets through. Traynor is working on setting something up, but..." She took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye. "I really want to get off this planet."

This time, he didn't hesitate to put his hand on her shoulder. She reached out to grasp his, just a quick reminder: _Someone's still here. I'm still here._

"Okay," Ash said, pushing her hair off her face again, and gave him a wan smile. "Let's go grab some food. It should be ready by now."

"Someone's cooking?" It seemed a strange thing to focus on, in the middle of all this.

Her smile widened. "Yeah, you know. Put a soldier in command, and that's what she comes to think of first."

"Very humble of you, Lieutenant Commander, ma'am."

"Shut it before I shut it for you, James."


	2. Chapter 2

"Oh, here you are, Specialist Traynor." Dr. Chakwas looked like she was about to give her the talk about placebos and allergy treatments again. "I must've gone through the whole ship, and you were right next door the whole time."

Samantha made herself smile for Chakwas. "Sorry. I can't hear much through that door." The AI core was sound-proofed and isolated, almost peaceful; she hadn't been in a hurry to leave. Her omni-tool blinked once. Search concluded. Familiar results. "Is something the matter? It's the comm tower, isn't it? I know, Wexler frets but I have every confidence in--"

"Actually, we just missed you at dinner," Chakwas said.

The quiet, gentle tone was almost too much kindness for Samantha to bear. There was nothing demanding about it. Chakwas didn't want an explanation or an apology.

"I'll be out in a minute," Samantha told her, hardly above a whisper. She hoped Chakwas wouldn't touch her. Her skin felt pulled tight, stretched over too much vulnerability trapped within.

"All right." The doctor hesitated. "Anything?"

It was probably as obvious as the nose on her face what Samantha was doing. "Not yet, I'm afraid."

Dr. Chakwas nodded, left it at that, bless her, and closed the door behind her.

Samantha stared at the screen of her omni-tool. Had she really expected any other results? Perhaps not, but _not_ going through EDI's databanks one more time would've been a betrayal of everything EDI had meant to her. She owed it to EDI to try every trick in the book, even if there was only so much she could do. It was like standing next to a hospital bed, watching the beeping monitors, while a friend lay in a coma. Her hardware and software were here, her platforms and her databanks, but she herself was sleeping elsewhere. EDI had been a cyber warfare specialist, among her other qualifications. If there was a way to safeguard her core processes, the ones and zeroes that made her _her_ , she would've known it. Samantha had helped acquire some security updates herself. EDI had been as safe as houses.

The way any sapient being was safe, until you ran enough raw power through them.

The tears had long since stopped flowing, and now her eyes just stung. She went back to the Normandy's sensor readings of the pulse that had gone through the ship and everyone inside it. The second it had reached the cockpit and EDI, the data had become jumbled, but she had managed to piece most of it together. Combing through the data was an overwhelming experience. It hadn't been an electromagnetic pulse, like she had first assumed. It had been a transmission, carrying specific commands, but a transmission of such magnitude that her omni-tool peppered its calculations with "beyond capacity" warnings. The pulse had come through the relay, and in all probability had stretched its capabilities to the limit. How far had it travelled? What else did it have imbedded in its code except for the immediate deactivation of all artificial intelligence?

Without thinking, Samantha attempted to access previous sensor performance reports, and EDI's steady, sweet voice echoed in the closed space. "This information is restricted. If you are attempting to access security recordings for recreational reasons, Jeff, I suggest you turn to the extranet."

Samantha's throat squeezed out a pained noise. No tears. No more tears.

Her comm link jolted her back to the present. "Traynor?"

"Yes," she answered, gathering herself.

It was Gabby's voice. She sounded strained, too. "They've started cleaning up, but I saved you some stew. Where are you?"

"Oh. I'm sorry, I--I'm right next to the med bay. Sorry, I got caught up with something."

"That's okay. I'm in the mess hall, if..."

"Yeah, absolutely. I'll be right there."

She closed her omni-tool and left, thankful for the distraction. Wallowing was no use to anyone. They had enough problems to face in the here and now.

*

When Samantha stepped into the mess hall, it was quieter than she had expected. There were only a few crew members finishing their meals in between soft murmurs of conversation. Tali and Garrus were also there, sharing Gabby's table. They had apparently been overlooked when the food had been prepared--they had dextro-protein drinks instead of plates in front of them. Samantha eyed the plate that had been set down for her, and didn't feel like she was much better off. The stew looked like soaked and seasoned rations, but at least it was hot.

"Hullo," she greeted everyone. "Thanks so much, Gabby. I was supposed to bring you dinner, not the other way around."

Gabby attempted a smile. Samantha wanted to send her straight to bed; her eyes had sunk into their sockets, and her face was pallid. Then again, she couldn't imagine she looked any more radiant herself.

"It's fine. I had a feeling we were both busy doing the same thing."

The words knocked the wind out of her lungs. They practically rattled her ribcage. Before she could quell them, the thoughts came rushing back. It wasn't the same, because EDI wasn't dead. Was she? She was offline. She was switched off. Surely there was a way, some way...

Deep down, she didn't believe it to be true, and that was the worst part. That was the logical conclusion that felt like betrayal, like giving up. The rational part of her knew that EDI was gone. Even if they could restart her processes, her personality wouldn't be there to bring life to them.

The other two seemed to catch on, exchanging glances. Tali turned to Gabby, taking the straw out of the mouthpiece of her mask. "I'm so sorry about Kenneth. I came down to see him last night. I didn't want to wake you."

Gabby nodded, once. There was no expression on her face. It was as much a mask as Tali's. "It... hasn't sunk in yet, to be honest. It's always been the two of us. I don't... I'm not sure what to do now." She pushed the remains of her stew around the plate, then let the spoon drop, straightening her spine. "How are the repairs going?"

Tali accepted the change in topic without comment. "Slowly but steadily. I'm preparing a report, once Garrus and I finish testing the main engine."

"No shortcuts, I believe that's what Ashley said," Garrus put in.

He didn't need to mention that they had no EDI to double-check everything. They all heard it anyway. Samantha dug into her food without a sound.

"I'd like to help, if you could use another pair of hands," Gabby said.

Tali took another sip of her dextro-drink. "It would be very helpful. If you're sure."

"Yeah. I'll be fine. I don't check propulsion systems with my leg."

"We should have the ship fit for FTL travel by tomorrow, then." Tali nudged Garrus with her elbow, tilting her head in a coquettish manner. "If I can get help from someone who actually knows her way around a ship engine."

Garrus raised his hands and pretended to be hurt, but his mandibles signified amusement. Turian faces were quite expressive, once you learnt how to read them. "I'm just in the way of your genius, am I?"

"You have your uses," Tali said brightly.

Samantha glanced at Gabby to check if their blatant flirting made her feel uncomfortable, but she seemed relaxed. She was probably used to this; she had worked closely with Tali for months. Samantha herself had long ago stopped wondering why there was so much comm traffic between the engine department and the main battery. A comm specialist quickly became an expert on ship-wide gossip without even prying, and she _did_ pry, a bit, given enough incentive.

"Do we have any idea what we'll find when we leave this system?" Garrus turned to Samantha. She ignored the shuffling that made it plain he was nudging Tali's foot with his under the table, like a school boy. "As I understand it, we left the relay in a hell of a state. Ashley told me no comms are getting through."

Ah, now it was her turn to talk shop. "No comms at all, I'm afraid, even though we got the tightbeam communications working again and should be within range. Wexler and I check and readjust the specs every hour, but so far, nothing."

"No one's followed us, at least," Gabby said. Her voice didn't exactly drip hope, but it was a valid point. It was strange to be in a new system and not have a ticking clock of approaching Reaper or Cerberus forces to contend with.

"I don't think anyone could even find our signal in order to follow it. It's pretty clear that not only is the relay down but so are several comm buoys along the way," Samantha said. "On the upside, I doubt the pulse did irreversible damage to the hardware itself. It's just a temporary overload."

Was that what it was going to be called in history classes--The Pulse? Whatever they ended up calling it, future generations would hear the capital letter for hundreds of years. 

"The navigation team told me we're not far from Sol," Tali said, setting her bottle down. "It's a short trip even without the relay. If the drive core holds out for the testing tomorrow, Joker should be able to give us the ETA in hours."

"Not days? Oh, that's good news. We'll keep scanning. Lieutenant Commander Williams has Spectre priority, so the second we find a buoy that's still up..." Samantha searched for a gesture that would signify galaxy-wide first priority bandwidth, and how it still made her heart beat faster. She ended up with something between a snap of her fingers and a mimed explosion.

"Yeah." Garrus steepled his six fingers. The talons tapped together with a dull clink. "Information would put a lot of minds at rest. I know we're on an Alliance ship, but... There are many people losing sleep worrying about their planets."

"And fleets," Tali added quietly.

Garrus's hand closed around hers, a counterpart to their already touching feet.

It struck Samantha how anxious and alone they must have felt, surrounded by humans, without any means to contact their people. No wonder the two liked to keep each other within reach. With the long-range comms down, there was no confirmation of the effect of the Crucible detonation. They were all technically still at war, still on their toes. It was absurd how you could forget that, focusing on the little picture of the comm networks.

She thought of Liara, sitting behind closed doors, refusing to see anyone. Well, Dr. Chakwas had probably seen her. She had a knack for that. Samantha felt a twinge of guilt for not knocking on Liara's door and at least asking her if there was anything she could do. Even if it meant mentioning Shepard and seeing the Citadel exploding all over again. There was no way the commander could've survived, and yet...

Hope could be so cruel, the way it sent one's mind spinning in endless circles.

*

Samantha kept her omni-tool on through the rest of the evening, and didn't stop even when she got ready for bed. She sorted through data while she brushed her teeth, categorized by relevance while she toed off her boots. The stacked holo-screens eventually surrounded her head like a fortress when she pushed her feet under the blanket to keep them warm, hugging the pillow to her chest. It may have been just a distraction at first, but the more she examined the pulse transmission, the more certain she became that there was something there worth chasing. Sorting out relevant transmissions was her bloody _job_ , and the Crucible signal had been too complex for only a straight-forward command, no matter how... effective. If she could separate the AI-specific data from all of the different layers, perhaps...

"Hi," someone said, and Samantha's screens flew down guilt-quick.

Gabby leaned on the bunk above Samantha's. She smelt of Alliance-issue dry showers, and her auburn hair had regained some of its usual lustre. A hint of a smile tugged at her mouth. "Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt. Would you mind switching bunks with me? I'd rather not try to climb up with this leg."

She was whispering, but the only other people in the room were two Nav boys who could snore through a Reaper invasion. Samantha put the omni-tool on stand-by and sat up, shooing data processing specs to the back of her mind.

"Oh, of course! No problem. I actually asked for the top bunk, but there was no room. One of my first lessons on life aboard a space vessel. Get there first or get what's left." Was she babbling? It was hard to tell after spending hours following five separate lines of thought. She wished she could stack her speech by priority, like data screens. It was coming out jumbled and disjointed. "I thought they set most of the med bay outside, for the extra space? The rest of the crew just liked the fresh air, I suppose. I saw someone setting up a campfire, even."

There was a moment of silence. Gabby opened her mouth slowly, and searched for words.

"D'you want me to change the sheets?" Samantha asked, making it a kind of apology.

Gabby blushed and glanced away, shuffling her feet. "Uh. No. No need, thanks. Sorry. I'm all out of social graces. Just... all out."

Samantha brushed her arm with the back of her hand when she got up. She would've hugged her, but Gabby was stiff and awkward, radiating anti-hug signals. "Hey, don't worry about it. If I talk too much, just tell me, all right?"

She climbed up into the top bunk, slipping under the covers again. Something occurred to her the second her bare legs brushed against the standard Alliance sheets, and she leant down to talk to Gabby. "Oh. You don't mind synth-silk, do you?"

Gabby quirked an eyebrow, stopping in the middle of folding over her half-torn trousers. "Why?"

"I sort of... bought those sheets? After I saw them at the commander's place? Silly thing, I know. They're naturally hypoallergenic and they let the skin breathe. And they're really good if you're prone to rashes! TMI, but I sometimes get these itches from normal sheets. One or two nights, perfectly fine, but if I sleep on them constantly, it can get uncomfortable, especially without real showers."

Gabby almost smiled. "Okay, you do know all Alliance sheets are hypoallergenic, don't you?"

Samantha hadn't known that. Why had she never asked? She withdrew, hugging her pillow closer, wanting to bury her head in it. "They... are?"

"Yep. It's in small print somewhere." Gabby settled in, and sighed when she stretched out her legs. "These feel nice, though. Cool."

Samantha hummed her agreement, too embarrassed to say anything. She brought up her omni-tool screens. The work always reassured her, as did the familiar sounds of softly creaking beds around her, the rustle of sheets, the sleepy murmurs. It had started to feel... home-y aboard the Normandy, despite the lack of showers. Like something of her own.

Before long, sleep was tugging at her, too, but if she cross-referenced this section at least...

"You're not feeling outdoorsy, either?" Gabby asked, suddenly.

"Oh, God, no." Samantha suppressed a shiver. She'd rather have the nice, clean bunk, thank you. "Call me a homebody, but I'll happily leave the jungle adventures on a non-terraformed planet to someone else. There's something in that thicket that makes me sniffle like mad."

She half-expected Gabby to scoff at her, because why wouldn't she; Samantha was allergic to half the universe. It would have been funnier if the hives and the shortness of breath had been a figment of her imagination. What was the difference between psychosomatic hives and allergy-induced hives? Dr. Chakwas hadn't given her a proper answer, which said it all, as far as she was concerned.

Gabby made no remarks. Judging by the rustling, she turned awkwardly on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position for her leg. "We ran a diagnostic suite on the main engine," she said, conversationally. "Some minor adjustments aside, we should be good to go by morning. In case you were wondering. The Lieutenant Commander ordered us to get some sleep first. I guess... she's being careful." There was a pause, an emptiness where grief fell. When she went on, her voice had become hoarse. "Since we're... missing two people from the engineering team."

"Doesn't hurt to be cautious," Samantha said, stupidly. Gabby hated being fussed over, she'd said as much, and Samantha really had nothing she wanted to say about loss. It was too close; it surrounded them like air. 

When the silence stretched out too long, Samantha did her best to steer them away from the topic. "Anyway, um. Good job getting the old girl running! I wish I had some concrete results to show. I mean, in addition to the comm tower that can't access anything." _And the ship AI databanks where there was once a person._ "I'm going through the Crucible pulse data, but it'll take ages yet before I have results."

"Processing power, right?"

"Yeah. We're equipped to handle Reaper transmissions, but this is--it's different. It's like the difference between chess and Arimaa."

"Oh. Seemingly simple, but with endless variation in the endgames?"

Samantha felt her heart jump in geeky joy. "You play Arimaa?"

It was Gabby's turn to sound bashful. "Just to pass the time during diagnostic runs. I'm not very good or anything."

"I could teach you. It's so much more exciting when you're playing against a person."

The bed creaked as Gabby tried to get comfortable. "Sure. Maybe you can show me how to not keep losing all my rabbits." She paused. "You know... when we have the time."

"Priorities. Yes. I hear you." Samantha sighed. "I don't know, Gabby... I could be chasing silver rabbits here. I can parse through transmission patterns, but I don't know how they _thought_ , the people who designed the Crucible transmission, that is. How can I tell a message from, from junk data, when I have no cultural communication cues?" 

Saying it aloud made the task loom immense. Samantha swallowed through a dry throat, letting the omni-tool dim into sleep mode and turning over onto her back. She took a deep breath and tried to silence the acidic part of her that kept telling her she should know all this, should do so much better or she didn't belong here, among all these galactic heroes.

"Hey. Maybe you could ask Tali. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't mind sharing some of her files on the geth intelligence, as long as it doesn't leave the ship. It's better than educated guessing, at least."

Gabby's words lit a spark. Samantha leant down to look at her, upside down. Her hair fell over her face, but she blew it off. "Oh, that's right! Thanks! She has all that personal experience in addition to the cultural perspective. That should give me some excellent reference points."

"Mm. Wait until morning, though." Gabby drew the covers up to her chin. 

It wasn't quite fast enough to hide her shoulders, which her top left bare. Samantha glimpsed the Medigel-patched scrapes and the red lines on her pale skin, left by her uniform and her bra straps. She had some of those same lines on her own skin. When had dressing down for bed become a luxury? The long shifts and the longer fight had left marks on them all.

"What are you looking for, exactly?" Gabby asked. Her eyes glinted with genuine curiosity.

Samantha didn't know where to begin. "A... meaning, I suppose." Blood was rushing to her head, making her thoughts muddled. "A reason. I'm looking for a reason."

It wasn't the whole truth. She was also seeking justice. That detonation had taken EDI from her--from them, she corrected herself--and as far as she knew, the pulse data alone held the key to the how and why.

"Hey, keep it down, would ya," one of the Nav team people barked. "Jesus Christ. Some of us have to chart our way out of this system tomorrow."

"Sorry," Samantha said, although she wasn't really. He had woken her up several times with his snoring.

Gabby rolled her eyes at the complaint, making Samantha smile. "I'm keeping you awake, too. Sorry."

"No bother. I'm always up for a chat. Good night, Gabby." 

"Good night."

Samantha withdrew up to her bed, burrowing under covers. The sheets weren't quite synth-silk, but they'd do. She was too tired to worry about it; too tired to worry about all the more pressing issues that could have kept her up instead.

She buried her omni-tool hand under the pillow, and slept.

*

The closer they came to the Sol system, the more people trickled into the CIC, some with good excuses, some without. No one stopped them. LC Williams stood over the galaxy map, in Shepard's spot, her eyes sharp and body tense.

"Look at Ash. It's like she's getting ready to pounce on someone," Lieutenant Vega--James-- said, and Samantha looked up from her screen, only to realise he was talking to Garrus. The turian had sneaked in without making a sound.

"More like scoping a damn precise headshot," the turian said, wisely keeping his tone low so that Williams couldn't hear. His opening and closing fists showed his nervousness, but his voice was steady. Like James, he was hovering near the galaxy map, out of Samantha's way but close enough to listen in.

Samantha couldn't blame them. In fact, she'd already entered data on the whole crew's next of kin into a search program that could be launched the moment she had access to the Alliance network again. By now, there might be information on survivors on Earth, even on the colonies. She thought of the first names she'd added to the program, and her pulse sped up, no matter how hard she tried not to hope.

The blink of a light on the upper left corner of her screen grabbed her attention. Oh, it had been entirely too long since she had last seen it. _Connection established. Cross-fleet hail._ "Lieutenant Commander, I'm detecting an active comm network," she piped up, hands shaking as she prepared for the signal congestion they were about to dive into.

Williams turned to her, eyes wide with expectation. "We're connected? Can you get me Admiral Hackett on the vid comm?"

 _Incoming message._ "I'm afraid not yet, Lieutenant Commander. The signal's bounced from a comm buoy near Neptune, and it's extremely weak--I'm attempting to compensate." Bits reassembled before her eyes.

"Entering Sol, stealth systems engaged," Joker's voice announced on the comm. "Sensors aren't picking up any Reaper activity."

"No trace of Reaper transmissions," Samantha confirmed, biting her lower lip in concentration. She was aware of all the eyes on her. 

"That is strategically irrelevant," Javik said, ever the ray of sunshine. "The Reapers use highly sophisticated ambush tactics. Stay alert."

Pensive silence filled the CIC. As soon as the cross-fleet transmission was clear enough to be understood, Samantha hit the speakers so that everyone around her could hear.

"...n the area, this is Alliance communication specialist Shinawatra. The Reaper forces in this sector and beyond have been eliminated. Survivors are..." The voice faded into static. Samantha added some boost to the weak signal, and the voice returned. "...miral Hackett. I repeat, this is an open transmission to all fleets within range. The Reaper forces have been eliminated."

"This is definitely an Alliance transmission?" Williams's voice was strained, her fingers gripping the rail like a gun.

Samantha double-checked her signal codes, and let out a deep sigh of relief. "Yes, ma'am. The message is sent from Admiral Hackett's dreadnought. The encryption checks out. It's official."

Williams looked down for a second, gathering herself. When she straightened her back, she spoke into the comm link. Her voice echoed from the CIC transmitters, reaching everyone onboard. "XO Williams here. We've received confirmation from Admiral Hackett. The war is over. I repeat, the war is over. We have victory."

She wasn't the greatest public speaker, didn't even try to be, but the response was deafening. Around Samantha, everyone seemed to raise their voice at once, and even though many faces remained grave, it didn't dampen the sense of triumph.

"Fuck yeah," she heard James bellow over the general noise, and then switch to Spanish that was too fast for her to follow.

Ensign Wexler crashed into her, and Samantha hugged her back. At first she was borrowing enthusiasm, but the elation was contagious. It was easier to be dizzy and overwhelmed when someone had a good hold on her.

The end of the war. No more Reapers. No more war data to parse through, no more constant running. It was real, and it wasn't. Her brain was slow to weave the new information into the old. Her hands moved out of their own accord when Wexler let go of her, giving the search program permission to make use of the connection while it lasted.

"Get me that line to Admiral Hackett, Traynor," Williams told her. She didn't say "good work", but her wide smile did. "Whatever you have to do. I bet they'll be happy to hear from us."

"Yes, ma'am." Samantha smiled back. It was just a matter of time. The closer they got, the stronger the signal became.

"Shepard, too," James put in, almost bouncing in place. "Man, right about now, I bet she's standin' on a Reaper corpse somewhere on Earth, wondering what took us so damn long."

"Settle down, soldier," Williams said, but not with a commanding voice. "Skipper's going to be my first question to the admiral."

The signal seemed to hold, so Samantha re-checked all the Alliance codes and encryptions while her programs ran their courses. There was no margin of error here; not when it concerned information on survivors. Idly, she threaded through the data on the pulse on a side screen, letting her intuition work while her sharper senses were engaged with the more immediate priorities.

The end of the war. It floated on the surface, refusing to sink in.

The program located the brother of one of the engineers, and then the list expanded miraculously, finding not just Wexler's mother but _both_ her mothers, LC Williams's sisters, Corporal Arvidsen's husband...

 _Analysis finished_ , Samantha's omni-tool informed her, sooner than she had expected. Tali's geth language corpus had been remarkably well organised, and it hadn't taken Samantha long to isolate the Old Machines communication data. The thought that she was only working with a fraction of what the quarians probably knew of the topic in totality was staggering. For all the battle strategies the Alliance had developed for dealing with the geth, had so few considered that their greatest asset was their method of communication?

Before she could peer at the results, the terminal flashed with a red warning screen. _Alert: 61% possibility the data contains fragments of Reaper code. Immediate deletion recommended._ Samantha slammed the screen down before it could alarm any of the people trying to act as if they weren't reading over her shoulder. Her heart pounded. Okay. Data isolation procedures. She was fine. Her systems were fine.

She sent her algorithms to chase the source of the alert, starting with the oldest files in Tali's corpus, but the result chilled her more than the alarm itself. Woven in the Alliance message, there was an extremely low frequency transmission, riding it but sitting dormant. Her sophisticated software detected the resemblance to Reaper code, but when Samantha let the data stream down the screen, some of the coding seemed familiar in a different way. It reminded her of the pulse readings, that subtle thread of transmission within a transmission...

Admiral Hackett was hailing them on the vid comm, the connection strong and holding. Samantha swept her mind back to matters at hand in spite of how much her brain wanted to disperse her train of thought into a dozen different directions. No time to think about it now. There was a line that had to be kept clear.

"Admiral Hackett on the vid comm, ma'am," she reported.

"Finally." Williams climbed down, but hesitated between one step and the next. "Is there something else, Specialist?"

Samantha turned to meet her steady don't-bullshit-me gaze, feeling like her fingers were grasping at forbidden gingersnaps. There was something about the comm buoy data that didn't add up, but there was no time to pursue that anomaly now, not in as much detail as it warranted. What would she tell LC Williams, anyway? She needed definitive answers if she wanted to sound like anything but an alarmist.

"N-no, ma'am," she said, quietly. "Preparing a list of survivor data, fast as I can."

Williams nodded and strode on her way. Samantha turned to her screens, forcing her thoughts back to survivor data compiling. Her heart was still thumping against her ribs. She loved puzzles. She loved them with a stomach-churning, breath-catching passion.

But she wasn't sure if she would like the solution to this one.

 

*

Sleep was out of the question. Not even finishing the task of compiling and, with Williams's permission, posting a survivor data file made Samantha feel truly accomplished. Well into her sleep cycle, she wandered the corridors of the ship, too wired to keep still. No point letting her omni-tool get a chance to slip into sleep mode since she couldn't, was there?

The admiral's news had been distressing, too. No geth activity since The Pulse. No word from Shepard. Staggering casualty rates. Burning skies.

Her aimless steps had taken her to the starboard observation deck. A hurricane of crewmembers had blown through it, leaving scattered empty bottles. Had they drunk to victory, or for the fallen? Perhaps for both and then some, judging by the amount. She watched the Sol system sail by, pressing her hand against the cool glass of the window. It wasn't glass, and it wasn't truly a window, of course, just a screen showing feed from outside the ship. She remembered watching the stars with her mother, reaching out for the constellations as her mother had introduced them to her, grasping only cold glass instead of the infinite space above.

The wreckage rolled into view almost ominously, the weightless piles of the waste of war. She didn't want to see the dead bodies among the destroyed ships and Reaper parts, but there were too many to ignore. In the vast, cold space, the corpses of ships and people seemed to be made of the same material, just as sad, just as helpless against their dark backdrop. 

"Something beautiful about them, isn't there?"

Samantha turned around, and saw LC Williams out of her uniform for the first time. Her hair was down. A smudge of beer on her sleeveless shirt hadn't washed out. There was something reassuringly normal about that.

"Not... the word I would've picked for them, ma'am," Samantha said as Williams joined her, touching her own fingers against the barrier keeping the cold space outside.

"No? Maybe it's a soldier thing. I like the Reapers the best that way. I can almost... respect them." 

Reaper corpses floated past, still and silent and intimidating. Samantha tried her best to find something to respect about them, but all she saw was that silence they wreaked, the absence of vibrancy, of life. There was nothing she respected about that.

"I'm afraid I'm not much of a soldier, then," she mumbled.

"If that was an easy admission, you're not," Williams agreed, but there was warm humour in her voice and a smile on her lips, even though she wasn't looking at Samantha. When she spoke up again, her voice was a dreamy whisper compared to the curt orders of the no-nonsense XO who had addressed the crew earlier. "'And the stately ships go on, to their haven under the hill... But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, and the sound of a voice that is still.'"

Samantha glanced at her, but turned away at the tears in her eyes. She wanted to reach out and put her hand on Williams's shoulder, to breach the gap between them. The silent graveyard they faced made her yearn for that connection between two people, warm and alive.

In the end, she could only bear to reach out with her words, finishing the quotation. "'But the tender grace of a day that is dead will never come back to me.'"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ashley is of course quoting Tennyson. The poem in question is _Break, Break, Break_.
> 
> Thank you once again for the swift and insightful beta, junemermaid!


	3. Chapter 3

After getting his fingers burnt for the second time, Steve decided he needed a break. Lack of sleep and proper food was getting to him, no matter how much he tried to distract himself. He worried about the others; polite young soldiers, hardly more than kids, who spoke like locals and looked to him for guidance because there was no one else. Half of them wouldn't make it if they couldn't get the comms working soon. Neither would these civilians, if he couldn't get their bird off the ground. Somehow they had to reach the nearest Alliance outpost. If it still existed.

He looked around, and found no inspiration in his surroundings. The landscape was like an unfinished vid set: harsh lights and empty spaces, endless grey chunks of masonry, half a building there, a bent street sign there. Steve took a deep breath and smelled ozone and gunfire, the remnants of an abruptly ended battle. At least the air was breathable, although ash still rained on them when the wind picked up. 

He wiped some engine oil and grit into his fatigues and powered up his omni-tool again. It took a little finesse and effort, but finally he managed to hot-rig the busted wiring, and then it was just a matter of coaxing a few damaged bolts loose and replacing them. After that, the rest was child's play.

"Okay, try her again."

The engine sparked to life, and power hummed through the transport. The woman in the long skirt - none of the family had introduced themselves, understandably - jumped out and smiled for the first time. Steve smiled back.

Before she could utter a word, a sound they hadn't heard in days reached their ears and distracted them from everything else: a shuttle arriving. The white and blue gleam of the Alliance insignia made Steve's pulse jolt with sudden hope. His comm link was a buzz of static in his ear, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to turn it off, even if no one had answered him for coming on 72 hours. 

The woman looked at him, anxiously, and took a step back. Her smile had died. "We should..." 

He raised a hand in pacification. "It's okay, ma'am. Wait with your kids. I'll... I'll be right back." 

He gathered his determination - flight lieutenant, he reminded himself - and walked towards the shuttle. It had touched down on the other side of what had once been a park, and was now an abandoned battleground. 

The door scraped a bent tree trunk when it opened. Steve was utterly unprepared for the sight of James Vega, in plain Alliance armor instead of his own heavier gear, climbing out ahead of a skeleton crew. He pointed them at the ground he wanted them to cover; Steve could read the signs even if he couldn't yet hear him. There was something seriously wrong with his comm link. Then James noticed him, and the empty space between them disappeared in seconds.

"James. God." He choked on a breath, clutching James close. "I saw-- When the Crucible detonated, I thought--"

"Gave us a helluva ride," James mumbled. They separated, and he gave Steve a quick once-over. His eyes were red, probably from the acrid air. Steve was already used to the sting.  
"You okay? You're the one we left behind on a planet crawlin' with the Reapers."

Steve laughed. It was either that or cry, and he had never been very good at the latter. Relief washed the tension from his bones, and he let it, allowing himself a moment to gather himself. He became faintly aware that he must look a mess.

"Not for long. Like I said, I saw the Crucible detonation. It... I don't think I have any words for it. It was amazing.” 

James nodded, not hurrying him along. His hand lingered on Steve's shoulder, keeping him steady.

”I think the blast swept over the whole planet. We haven't seen a moving Reaper since. Not even a husk." Steve waved a hand at the building to their right, or what was left of it. "I had a front row seat. See that Reaper carcass over there? Its cannon burnt clean through the building we were in. Cut the room in half, before the shockwave reached it, and then... yeah."

It already seemed like it had happened weeks ago. Months.

Steve ran a hand over his face, then made an attempt to wipe off the engine oil smudge. He realized he'd left one on James's face, too. "Sorry. I'm probably-- It's been pretty hectic here. There's eight of us, and I rank the highest."

James just smiled to his scarred side. "The ripped shirt look works for you, Esteban."

What the hell kind of a time was this for flirting, Steve thought, but then recognized the signs of fading panic on James's face. The man had an enviable poker face, but if you knew where to look, you could see the tension around the eyes, the tremble in the smile. Steve wondered what the end of the war had looked like from where his friend had seen it.

Before he could answer, one of the civilians approached them, the woman with the asari band shirt and the braids. She had left her baby with the others. "Lieutenant Cortez? Is... is everything all right?"

"You're good to go, ma'am," Steve reassured her, before James could say anything. "Just don't start 'er cold, and tighten those capacitor shieldings when you get a chance, and she should get you there safe and sound."

He had thought of making a bargain to get them to take the wounded with them, but he was glad there was no need. It could have gotten heated. Everyone's nerves were on edge.

The woman mumbled her thanks and hurried back to her family. The stocky man with the shaved head pulled her into the transport, which started with a cough, but started nonetheless. Steve thought he heard a child whoop excitedly when it took off and lurched into the air.

James nudged Steve. He didn't look happy, but he'd waited for the transport to be up before he spoke. "Cortez, what the hell? That's an Alliance shuttle."

"Old model. Retro-fitted." Steve was glad he was explaining this to James and not to some hardass he didn't know. "They probably scrounged her from a junkyard or found her buried in a garage somewhere." He looked at his friend, waiting for understanding. "They're starving, James. Their children are starving. They've been running and hiding for too long. There's been no word from the Alliance, or anyone, for days. If this can get them closer to a place that isn't shot to hell and back..."

James's throat worked. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

"We have no rations left," Steve said, and at the reminder, felt the hollow ache of his empty stomach. "There was nothing else I could do for them, so..."

James grabbed him with his free hand and pulled him close, squeezing his head in the hook of his thick arm. He'd done that before, after half a bottle of mescal. It was more a wrestling grapple than an embrace, and not particularly gentle. It only held a few moments, long enough for James to press his face into Steve's hair. "Good to see you, man. You're still way too nice for your own good."

He smelled of too many sleepless days, too, underneath his borrowed armor. Steve didn't care. He was there; he was alive. They'd survived.

They stepped away from each other when one of James's squad approached them. "Sir, we've got six wounded, one critical. The area is secure."

"Call for med evac," James told her, gesturing with his assault rifle.

Steve had re-modded that rifle himself mere days before.

"The commander," he said when they were alone again, and his voice dropped out of concern. "How is she? The Citadel... Did she..."

James wouldn't look him in the eye. Worry lanced him clean through. God, he had enough worry for the entire planet. "Yeah, they're... Doc's there, leading the search. Found her once before, didn't she? They've been lookin' ever since the detonation, you prob'ly heard more about that than--"

"Comms have been down," Steve reminded him. "That's why I asked."

"Yeah. They're working on that. We need to hook you up to the new frequency." James opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it again. 

They were both quiet, standing in the middle of the bombed-out park, with the wind blowing through the wrecked buildings.

"She'll find her," James said, abruptly. His voice was raw. "She did it once, right? So. She has to."

Steve couldn't bring himself to say anything, just nod. A sick feeling filled his stomach, rose up his throat. He was humouring James, and he didn't like it. He'd seen parts of the Citadel rain down. If Shepard was still alive, it was a miracle of galactic proportions, and she had already used up her nine lives at her last death. 

"C'mon," James said. "I got orders to take you and the rest of the survivors back to the base."

Steve fell into step with him. "Word's come down from the admiral?"

"He's come down himself. We're regrouping fast."

"Good." Steve glanced around them. Some of the wounded were already being helped into the shuttle. "There's a lot to do."

*

Steve had expected to be taken into a large command center, but they headed north, away from the ruins of the metropolitan area. The wreckage of the war made for a depressing view. He caught himself thinking that Robert would never have to see Earth like this, and it didn't help. Robert would never know they'd won, either. He closed his weary eyes and allowed himself to doze until James nudged him and told him they were almost there.

The base had probably never seen as much traffic as it was seeing now. It had been left largely intact by the Reaper forces, but that was because it was a small outpost, far from the capital. Steve looked around, trying to get a sense of the place. It had been expanded with hastily built shelters and tents. The layout was neat and easy to decipher from the air, but once they touched down, the crowds of people disoriented Steve immediately. There was a fair number of civilians in the mix, specialists and doctors that had to be in short supply on Earth now. A tall comm tower cast its shadow over the grounds.

"The main building, turn left after the stairs," James said before Steve could voice a question. He patted Steve on the shoulder, and the familiar gesture steadied him. "And grab somethin' to eat when they're done with you."

"Is that an order, then?" It was a stab in the general direction of light-hearted chatter. Steve was out of practice. "Mr. N7? I noticed they gave you some people to boss around already."

"Ain't no N-School left. Or Rio de Janeiro." James glanced away, trying to hide his pained grimace. "Shit. Forget it, man, forget it. I gotta go oversee the evac. Catch you in the mess hall later, okay?"

Steve reached out to touch James's arm, but he was already jumping back into the shuttle, barking at a soldier to get the hell off his seat.

There'd be time later for pulling him back from that edge, Steve told himself. They'd sit down and have a proper after-the-end-of-the-world talk. For now, the brass was waiting. He suppressed a twinge of embarrassment for the state of his uniform and headed inside.

It turned out he needn't have worried. Atteberry, the young captain in charge, didn't seem to mind. He checked Steve's hand and retina scans and informed him that his CO was ship-side in orbit, helping to organize the Citadel restoration, and would have orders for him when she returned. LC Williams, Steve read between the lines, and did his best to adjust to the thought. He'd flown her plenty of times, picked her up from a heated battle or two, but never taken orders from her before. He forced out the proper acknowledgements as the captain went on to explain the state of the fleet (sorry) and the focus of the outpost (tech assistance). He knew he had a lot of catching up to do, but he struggled with the vastness of the scope. War had a tendency to burn everything down to the basics. Now the field was wide open again.

"Says here you've received commendations for your technical skills," Atteberry pointed out, skimming Steve's file. His accent was broad and rolling; pleasant to listen to, but not exactly authoritative. He looked like he hadn't slept in weeks, but was relaxed and informal, perfectly in his element. "That's excellent news for us. We've got a good dozen salvaged birds here in need of tender lovin' care, and not a tech too many. While you're waiting for your orders, you might want to check with Sergeant Gadhavi. If you feel like making yourself useful."

"Yes, sir, I'll do that," Steve said. A thought jolted him out of auto-pilot. "Sir? Are any of my crewmates from the Normandy here on base?"

Atteberry poured whiskey into a coffee cup. "Apart from Lieutenant Vega? A wee bit hard to miss him."

"Yes, sir."

"You're in luck. LC Williams was gracious enough to send some of her brightest down to coordinate with our lab techs." Atteberry took a long sip and sighed. "Now, go on an' get yourself a bit of scran and a shower. Dismissed."

Steve couldn't resist poking his head into the science labs first. They were easy to find; the whole building echoed with noise. It had been filled with equipment, half of it resembling a fix-it shop, half an intelligence operations center. There were techs repairing generators working side by side with IT specialists. The set-up was fairly impressive, if unorthodox.

"Cortez!" He turned around to face the dazzling smile of Samantha Traynor, her eyes reflecting pure surprised joy. She handed the datapad in her hand to her workmate and hurried to him. "You're here! I'm so glad you're okay - oh, I'm going to hug you. D'you mind if I hug you?"

Steve laughed, and raised his hands. "Good to see you, too, Traynor. Uh, better not. I'm covered in - oh, uh, okay then..."

She had wrapped her arms around his neck anyway, and held on for a good while, long enough for smiles to fade and the weight of the situation to crash down on them. When she let go, Steve saw her blink back tears, and knew they weren't for him. 

"I'm sorry about the engine oil," he said, softly, in an attempt to not make her feel uncomfortable while she searched for words. "I've had these clothes on since the Normandy."

Traynor gathered herself with a deep breath and found her smile again. "Oh, tosh. Like any of us smell like roses after processing data in this sauna all day." Her workmate tried to get her attention, but she waved him away. "So, James found you. I couldn't give him exact coordinates, of course, but it seems I managed to narrow it down well enough."

Steve leaned against a nearby counter, trying to get some weight off his aching feet. He wondered how long James and Traynor had been on a first name basis. The days after the end of the Reaper War truly had lasted months. "Wait, you were the one who...?"

"I cross-referenced the communication data from before the satellite was destroyed, yes. The rest was just geography and deduction. He didn't tell you?" Traynor tried to look disappointed, but her pride at her accomplishment shone through.

"Mr. Vega tends to gloss over the fine details." Steve shrugged, smiling because it was one of the reasons why he liked James. He wasn't what you'd call subtle, but Steve envied that ability to see to the core of things. "Well, you have _my_ thanks, in any case. We had several wounded with us."

Traynor's smile tightened. When she spoke, it was in a soft tone. For a moment, loss overshadowed her optimism. "I know. I mean, I assumed, after we - after seeing what it's like down here. I'm just so happy you made it. You're one of my people, you know? And we've lost enough to this war."

James hadn't mentioned any names apart from Shepard. Steve opened his mouth to ask, but Traynor's workmate interrupted again, looking vexed.

"Sorry, I have to get back to it," Traynor said. "Why don't we meet up in the mess later? I'll help you catch up."

Third time was the charm. Steve muffled his tired chuckle into his hand, and realised his beard badly needed a trim, too. "Okay. Okay, sounds great. See you there."

She caught his arm in a quick grip before letting him leave, one more tether to pull him back into the comforting familiarity of camaraderie. He suddenly remembered that he had needed to ease into it at first. A fighter pilot was alone in his cockpit, and he preferred working while fully focused, leaving no room for anything or anyone else. He was a widower with no family. It could have meant he stood alone.

But she was right, Steve mused, while water ran down his face, washing away days of grime and grief. He was one of her people. In hindsight it amused him that he had never even officially been assigned to the crew of the Normandy, simply the retrofit team. Perhaps it didn't matter. The Normandy wasn't an assignment, it was a family.

It was a good thought to hold on to while he walked into the echoing mess hall, nodding to the familiar faces. Most of the Normandy's tech department was present. There was a seat waiting for him as soon as he was recognized. The smiles were edged with grim determination: _you made it too, huh?_ What connected them was too raw to bring up in casual conversation; the nods and the claps on the back said enough. He dug into the terrible grub like the starving man he was and waited for noisier company.

He didn't have to wait for long. James turned heads, even out of armor and run ragged. When he set his plate down, Steve noticed his knuckles were an ugly red, badly scabbed over.

James nodded to him, even twisted his wide mouth into a smile. Then he turned to the tech sitting on the opposite side of the long table. "Hey, Gabby."

"No funny noise during takeoff this time?" she asked, comfortably picking up from a previous conversation.

James scarfed down the food and spoke with his mouth full. "Didn't notice any, no. I guess you caught whatever was stuck in there."

Steve hadn't remembered her name. He had barely recognized her face. He smiled while the other two chatted, not feeling particularly left out. The familiar company was enough to ground and comfort him. His gaze wandered to the next table, where a group of local techs had gathered around a pot of what didn't smell quite like coffee. A short woman with a sergeant's stripes listened to their conversation, intently, not speaking. Their eyes met, a moment of sudden connection, like two quiet people in a room full of chitchat tended to find one another. She showed no initial reaction, but when her gaze slipped to Gabby she scowled, a dark and unguarded show of distrust. Abruptly, she turned away, focusing on her own company. Steve was left wondering. He hadn't sensed any particular ill will towards the Normandy's crew. Most of the people he met seemed a little awed, even.

"Enjoying the Earth delicacies?" 

Steve turned around, then looked up to see Traynor's apologetic grin.

"I know, disgusting, isn't it? Hi, Gabby! I thought you were out in the field today." She slumped down onto the bench, taking advantage of a newly freed space. The mess hall was a busy, restless place with all the charm of a hospital waiting room. No one seemed to stay for long, once their immediate business there was finished.

"At least it's not nutrient bars," Steve said diplomatically. He was hungry enough to consider seconds.

"With all the relays down, Earth's not getting asari fruit deliveries anytime soon," Gabby put in.

" _All_ the relays?" Steve looked from James to Gabby to Traynor, trying to glimpse something other than the weary resignation that proved it was true. "How is that even possible? A power charge of that magnitude--"

Traynor looked at him, head tilted but eyes unblinking and honest. "Well, how did all the Reapers suddenly drop down dead?"

"Broken," James said, then elaborated, "It's not like they were really alive in the first place, right?"

"Oh, don't you start." Traynor leaned past Steve to shove at James's shoulder, naturally failing to budge him. "Anyway, it wasn't about power, it was about the coding."

Gabby raised her eyebrows, and her fork. "Uh, actually--"

"All right, yes, the delivery called for an enormous amount of power generated by the Catalyst. Yes. I'm not disputing that." Traynor raised her hand to hold back Gabby's protests, a knowing smile shared between them. They had had this conversation before. "But what brought them down was a command, and it reached and unravelled every Reaper phenomenally fast, through the relays. Amazing, isn't it? Considering that the relays were built to withstand a lot. I think their malfunction was purposeful. Part of the command code."

They had all stopped eating to listen to her, and so had some others, drawn in by the topic and the enthusiasm in her voice. The sergeant was looking their way again, Steve noticed. Perhaps this information was restricted. He had no idea whether the Alliance command had made a public statement concerning the final strike in the war against the Reapers. Traynor didn't seem concerned, but lab techs tended to be idealistic like that, all for full disclosure and the free flow of information.

"Why don't you reverse the command, then?" James was joking, but even he looked genuinely impressed. "Tell the relays to fix themselves? Would come in handy."

"You try it!" Traynor laughed. "I just told you, I can barely theorize what's included in the command--that it was a command at all!"

"Don't sell yourself short, Sam." Gabby leaned her arms against the table. "The Alliance brass seemed really interested in your report, right?"

Traynor shrugged. "Sure. I doubt many people have had the chance to spin theories yet. But it's little more than--than brain teasers for comm scientists, right now."

It was hard to argue the point. Alliance Command had more than enough on their plate. They were cut off from the rest of the galaxy and their home planet was a battleground. The restoration efforts would stretch Earth's already sparse resources thin. It would get ugly, no doubt about that. But at least they were alive to try to fix what they could.

Steve looked at his hand, touching his calloused fingertips together. He imagined he could still feel the shape of the half-melted bolt as it finally came loose, that tiny acquiescence from the universe.

"You missed the first party, Esteban," James changed the subject. "We'd just been dropped here. First taste of home I get, and it's the good stuff! Captain Atteberry made sure we got to toast victory with real scotch. I don't know how the hell he found it."

"Personal collection?" Gabby huffed, and leaned in to share a well-known secret. "He's sloshed half the time."

"He's sharp, though," Traynor defended. "The techs around here adore him. He must've done something to earn that."

"Yeah," Steve agreed. You couldn't buy respect with booze. Camaraderie, maybe, but you always lost something in the deal. "He mentioned salvaged transports? I promised I'd lend a hand while we're stationed here."

"Oh no you don't!" James rapped his scabbed knuckles against the side of Steve's head. "Damn, Esteban, you're barely awake. You're done volunteering for today. Cotorra, c'mon, help me talk some sense into this guy!"

Traynor raised her hands. "Don't look at me. I can't even keep myself from working."

"And they really do need the help," Gabby said with the gravitas of experience.

"I think you're outvoted, Mr. Vega." Steve laughed at the exasperated look on James's face, and got up to fetch a second helping of food. He did appreciate the concern. It was good to see James relax.

"You need serious downtime, all of you," James declared. He was about to say something else when Traynor started to cheerfully argue the assessment, but they were both interrupted.

The doors were flung open. It wouldn't have made anyone look up from their plates if a hush hadn't spread from the tables closest to the doors, a wave of respect that every soldier recognized. A Spectre and a war hero on deck. LC Williams walked through the hall towards their table with the bright-eyed determination of the first volunteer for a risky mission, head held high. She was dusty and scuffed, fresh out of the field.

"Ash," James greeted her with jarring familiarity. Even he stood up when she approached. "Back from the ship? You got new orders for us?"

She sighed, gesturing for everyone in their table to sit or stand at ease, and let distress show on her face, a crack in an armor. She was speaking only to them, the Normandy crew, but everyone in the hall was listening in. "Yes, but that can wait. I've... got news. It'll be broadcast soon, but I wanted to deliver it in person. I wanted you to know first."

Steve knew what she was going to say then, saw it in the faint tremble of her mouth.

"Doct... Liara located her, in the Citadel ruins. Skipper's been found. Her... body has been found."

You could hear a pin drop. You could hear James's hopes fall and shatter.

*

Loss made you numb. Steve knew it from experience. He wished he could feel the loss of the woman who had insisted on being more than a commander, being a friend, but he couldn't even feel the calibrator in his hand. A stupor seemed to have taken over the entire base. He didn't think anyone had believed that Shepard could die, at this point--she had proven herself immortal so convincingly. The loss of that belief sent them all staggering, unsure what to do next.

Steve fixed transports. There was no shortage of damaged tech. He could work through the night and not get the half-trashed shuttle flying, but he was determined to get it on the mend, anyway. He had good tools and plenty of spare parts. The rest was just a matter of time and patience and numb hands. Somewhere in the same warehouse, others worked alongside him; he was occasionally aware of Gabby moving at the edge of his vision, but she had her own work. They gave each other space, drowned their own sorrows.

Some commotion from outside made him look up from his work. At some point, dusk had come and gone, and it was now pitch dark. The nightfall took some getting used to, after so much time shipside. Steve would've gone back to the engine in front of him if he hadn't recognized one of the raised voices. He switched his omni-tool off, hopped down and hurried outside, blinking against the difference between the brightly lit warehouse and the stark night.

He didn't have to go far. There was something going on near the food stores, one of the other warehouses that hadn't been converted into a fix-it shop.

"Down on the ground! You, too! Hands behind your head! Now!" The barked orders could've come from anyone, the tone of voice cold and impersonal. But Steve saw James now, rifle in hand, shoving a thin young man down onto his knees. There were four civilians in mismatched, scrounged clothes. The youngest was barely twenty; the oldest was a kindly-looking man in his sixties. If it weren't for the war, they would've probably never met, but they knew each other, that much was obvious from their glances.

"I want names! Who let you through the gate? Hm? Don't fucking tell me you jumped the fence!"

The bags were different, from children's backpacks to expensive-looking handbags, but the civilians all had them, and they were stuffed full. Looters. Of course. Steve stepped closer, meeting the eyes of one the two guards to let her know he was there. If James had noticed him, he didn't show it.

"Fuck you," the thin man James had pushed down spat out. "You got a starving family, Alliance? No, there's enough for _your_ folks, isn't th--"

James hit him on the mouth, hard. The man made no noise, just stared, blood and spit trailing down his chin. He was daring James to hit him again, and he looked ready to do just that. The guards twitched forward, but didn't intervene, outranked and helpless.

" _¡Cállate!_ What the hell do you know?" James's voice was hoarse now, his teeth clamping together. "Names. Now. I ain't asking you again."

Steve grabbed James's shoulder. It felt like granite under his palm, utterly unyielding. He'd never seen James that tense, filled to bursting with impulse. "Come on, that's--"

He was shrugged off with ease. It wasn't enough force to make him stagger back, but he retreated, sensing barely held-back aggression. "Step back, Cortez! I mean it!"

"Look at them. He's just a kid!" Steve was aware his chances of talking James out of this weren't great. He still had to try.

"He's a thief, that's what he is, stealing from the guys trying to _protect_ his sorry ass!" James nudged at the man with his foot. It wasn't quite a kick. "This is what Shepard sacrificed herself for? For these fucking people?!"

Steve took a step back, then another. His friend was radiating hurt, blind pain that threatened to turn into more blind violence. There was only one thing he could do here. He turned around, and ran to the main building to fetch LC Williams.

"It's Lieutenant Vega," he told her simply, after apologising for interrupting nothing at all. Williams was still in full uniform, making herself busy just like all the rest of them. "You better come see this, ma'am."

She followed him without a word, her mouth a tight line. Steve lingered back once the looters and James were in sight. For a moment he feared he'd made a mistake, brought together two people on the verge of exploding. Then he saw the control in Williams's bearing, saw her set aside their friendship and become a superior officer and it reassured him.

"Lieutenant!" she called out in a voice that demanded attention. "What's going on here?"

"I-- Looters, I was--"

James sounded so very young. 

"Never mind, I can see for myself. You're an Alliance marine! You call this the proper conduct of an Alliance marine, Lieutenant?"

"No, ma'am--"

"No, it's a disgrace! You're out of line, and you're dismissed! I'll handle this. Soldier, bring these people to the command building so we can get to the bottom of this. I want a medic ready. Wake one up if you must."

The ugly situation was unravelled in moments. Nothing less could be expected of the woman who had been Shepard's second in command. Steve should have thrown in an intergalactic trade dispute and a live Reaper while he was at it.

Steve's throat worked, trying to push down an uncomfortable lump of guilt. He'd done what was necessary, but he didn't feel proud of himself. Being right rarely seemed to hold substance; it couldn't make you feel good on its own. He turned around to return inside before James could catch his eye, but paused at the doorway. James stomped past, breathing harshly. It had been necessary, Steve told himself, and knowing James would need his space, went back to work.

He was already blinking back sleep when he was interrupted next, long into the night. James wasted no time in "hey"s, just leaned against the side of the transport Steve was fixing and pointed a bottle in his direction.

"Finney traded me for it. Not as good as the captain's, but it burns right."

Steve straightened his creaking back and took the whiskey bottle, startled by the fact that James appeared to be apologizing to him instead of chewing him out for running to the LC. Then again, he had never been the kind to hold a grudge.

"Thanks," he said, and swallowed a mouthful, letting it burn the dryness out of his throat. "So... We're good?"

”Yeah, man.” James rubbed at his nose. There was still dried blood on his fingers. He was in his own worn fatigues, the same old t-shirt he refused to believe was too small for him. "I need to hear that I've fucked up every once in a while, you know? Keeps me grounded. I mean, I do that. I fuck up. I know that." He took a swig of whiskey and swiped his hand over his mouth, his grimace at the taste turning into a wan smile. "Last time I fucked up good and proper I got commended for it. I got stripes. What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Beats the shit out of me."

Steve listened to the rare outpouring, the words as red-raw as James's knuckles. "You explained all this to Williams, then?"

" _Dios_ , no," James said, and they chuckled at that, out of relief rather than amusement. "Don't need to give her any ideas. She might decide I really _am_ a fuck-up."

Steve reached out to rub at James's shoulder. It was warm under his touch, flesh and blood after all. "She knows better than that."

"She knows her stuff." James shrugged, and offered Steve one more swig of the whiskey before he tucked the bottle into his back pocket. "It's really late. You realize you're alone in here? Bunk time, yeah?"

"In a little while, I--"

James caught his arm, and tugged, the briefest reminder of strength. "Don't argue with me, Esteban. A coupla hours. C'mon."

Steve stopped resisting and let himself be led away.

The sleeping quarters seemed huge after the close space of the Normandy, but they weren't any bigger than what he had gotten used to during his pilot training. Steve peeled off his new, clean clothes, feeling strangely vulnerable without the layer of dirt that had covered him for days. Even his tags felt cold and new against his skin. He caught the edge of James's stare, and they shared a flicker of a smile. For a moment, he wished he could invite James to share the bunk. It seemed so long since he had last felt that closeness, and they could both use the reminder now. But James's grief still covered him like spikes. In any case, they were not on the Normandy anymore. Regulations actually meant something planet-side.

Sleep eluded them both. They tossed and turned, too exhausted to sleep and too worn out to stay awake. Around them, dozens of others snored and shifted in their sleep, leaving them isolated in their own state.

"I worry about you, James," Steve said quietly into the empty space between their bunks, half thinking aloud.

He didn't turn to look, but heard rustling as James turned to him. "What, me? Why?"

"Because..." Steve sighed. "Shepard. She was a fixed point for you, wasn't she? Something to navigate by. And now you drift. I... know what that's like."

James was quiet for a long time, longer than Steve had thought he ever could be. When he spoke, it was through a thick throat. "Could really use a flightplan. We all could." He reached out; Steve met his hand in the middle, felt the scrape of the calloused and scarred fingers over his. "Hey. Thanks, for being there. For being you." Steve could hear his throat working, the muffled choking sound. "For not being fucking dead."

James caught his hand, and held on so tight the bones of their fingers ground together. He had used to hold Steve like a gun. Now he held him like a lifeline.

 

*

Shepard's funeral was the first time the Normandy's crew was reunited in its surviving entirety since the end of the war. While the most prominent and photogenic were whisked from interview to interview -- poor LC Williams took it like an accepted punishment -- the rest of them ducked the attention and did what they had always done. The end of the Reaper War was a process, admiral Hackett said in one of his speeches. Medals and commendations were well and good, but victory was judged by the way it was handled.

"Now that's an interesting point of view," Garrus commented, watching the screen by Steve's side. His drawling tone made it impossible to tell if he was being sarcastic. Traynor claimed Garrus was an open book for a turian, but Steve had never seen it.

"From a military leader?"

Garrus rubbed at his scar and made a low, contemplative trill the translator didn't catch. "It's very diplomatic, as far as I understand these things. Politicians love to talk about responsibility. But right now, you know what most of his audience consists of?"

"War veterans," Steve said, and nodded. "I see your point."

"Take it from an old soldier that no one likes validation more than a fresh veteran of war," Garrus said. This time, Steve caught the grin in his voice. "To shoot down Reapers and then have everyone focus on the guy who sweeps the corpses out of the way and plants flowers... It's a pretty picture, but it's going to make some people bitter and resentful. It's just the way it goes."

"Well, keep reminding them who won 'em that victory in the first place," James said, stepping behind Steve and clapping him on the shoulder.

Garrus's mandibles flared a little. "They never let me talk for long in interviews."

"I can't imagine why," Tali said, and brought one gloved finger to the mouthpiece of her mask as if in contemplation. "With your sunny disposition and babyface, you're a shoe-in for a peace time poster boy."

"Ouch." Garrus laughed. "Huh. You sounded a little like Shepard there."

James nodded towards the door, his face as closed as books got. "C'mon. I think we're all here."

It had taken some finagling to have their own small ceremony aboard the ship in privacy. Williams had pulled Spectre rank to make it happen, most likely. Steve imagined it would have made a beautiful vid, a best-selling tearjerker. In reality, without the softly rising orchestral music and the meaningful cuts, it was a somber, intimate affair. Only the occasional sniffle broke the silence when Liara put Shepard's name on the wall where it belonged, above but with her crew. Steve counted the missing faces. He had already known about EDI, of course. The ship was unnaturally quiet, and it hushed the rest of their voices, too. Liara alternated between graceful and stricken. She wore flowing black, following Shepard's customs rather than any asari tradition Steve was aware of. Steve didn't really know a lot about Filipino Catholicism, either, but he couldn't recall Liara ever wearing black before.

Steve wore his dress uniform, like everyone else but the alien members of the crew, although he was sure Garrus's was the closest turian equivalent. Standard Alliance funerals had become more than familiar to many of them, but they had always seemed to make their own version of the rulebook on the Normandy, and it felt somehow important to keep true to it in memory of their commander. The quiet ceremony was followed by an asari prayer for the departed soul, hummed rather than sung. Tali and Williams both mumbled their own words amid the tune.

Steve glanced at James at his side. His silence was not just respectful, it was absolute. His eyes were fixed on Shepard's name on the wall.  
Williams called them all to the mess hall afterwards. Glasses were handed out, as well as bottles of the best stuff a post-war Earth could offer. There was even turian brandy. One of the ensigns shyly brought out an oboe, and the conversations started flowing as well as the melodies.

”To Skipper,” Williams said, raising the first toast to the fallen.

Tali's was the only glass with a straw in it. That made it look a little like a kid's juice box, but it also meant she could fill it to the brim. "May her steps fall on home ground."

"And her fingers wrap around a cold one," Garrus added, eliciting a low buzz of chuckles.

"You saying Commander Shepard would let a gun go cold in her hand?" James pointed his glass at Garrus. "Watch it, Vakarian. I've punched people for less."

Garrus made the turian equivalent of an eyeroll. "A cold beer, Jimmy. As in the kind you get at a bar? I don't know about human heaven, but I'm not drinking to the thought of my friend facing a battlefield without my backup."

"No, forget about the bar," Williams put in. "God forbid, she might dance on it."

The laughter that erupted was sob-choked, but good, the kind that welled up from deep affection and a long line of memories. Even Liara smiled, wide and sweet, and emptied her glass. Steve had never had much family, but he imagined this came as close as it could, this crew of steadfast friends, gathered to create a sense of ease and warmth as they said goodbye to one of their own.

*

The official funeral took place about a week later, in a grand cathedral, and it was a thoroughly different affair. Recorders were rolling, the brass were all present, and a bishop did all the toasting. Steve tried to get a better look at Shepard's mother, seated in the front row, but the woman was tiny, even though her back was straight.

During one of the many speeches, he became aware that James was an explosion about to happen. His hands were tight fists, his jaw tense. Steve guessed that the only thing holding him back was his respect for Shepard.

He leaned close. "You wanna go?"

James looked at him like he'd forgotten Steve was there, and nodded.

They sneaked out through the choir members waiting for their turn, managing to dodge all the hungry reporters. As soon as they stepped out of the church into the back of the yard, James found a trashcan and kicked it off its hinges. He made short work of it with a few more kicks, then stepped back, drawing a satisfied breath.

Steve put his hands in the pockets of his uniform, and glanced about for any reporters. They'd have a field day with this display of violent mourning. The Alliance guards set to secure the perimeter made him feel more at ease. His eyes fell on Garrus and Tali, huddled on a nearby bench, looking up from a screen on Tali's omni-tool.

"Well, I didn't think it was quite that dreadful," Tali said.

"You walked out, too?" Steve peeked at the screen: it was a live feed from inside the cathedral. The camera zoomed dramatically on admiral Hackett's face.

"I figured I could step aside for now, since her mother's got her back in there," Garrus said with a very human shrug. A mannerism he'd learnt from Shepard, maybe.

"I dragged him out," Tali corrected. "All this ancient architecture and dramatic choir music... it's a little strange to me. I wasn't comfortable. It all felt so superfluous, considering."

"Miss... Zorah?" Steve grasped at the proper way to address her.

”Tali. Please.” She sounded amused, although her mask hid her smile. "You know I'm from the fleet. Any ship-side funeral is the official one as far as I'm concerned."

"You wanna hook omni-tools and watch the speech with us?" Garrus asked.

James shook his head, still looking like the world was his punching bag.

"Thanks, but we're heading out," Steve said. He didn't want to leave James alone like this.

"I can send you the recording later," Tali said. "Take care."

Steve steered James towards his small apartment. The Alliance had shown lenience towards the Normandy's personnel, and fixed them up with temporary lodgings planetside. They were mostly in abandoned and fixed buildings, beyond notice of the press, stripped of all personal touches. The only thing that would have made them feel more temporary would have been mints on the pillows. Steve didn't expect he'd stay long enough to discover the charm of the place.

James headed straight into the tiny kitchen and threw himself into the task of fixing them dinner. Afterwards, they settled on the couch with some bad coffee and talked, talked shop, talked vids, talked the loss and the helplessness and the strangeness away.

Finally, Steve pushed his mug away and yawned, stretching his arms. "Getting late."

James made no move, having found a comfortable angle against the corner of the couch. "You mind if I stay?" Something must have shown on Steve's face, because he immediately added, "I'm not in the mood for checkin' out your maintenance closet, though. Just so we're clear."

Steve smiled, and scratched at his beard. "Sure. No problem."

James leaned his cheek on the palm of his hand, and gave Steve a warm glance. "Rain check?" He averted his gaze and laughed under his breath. Something about it was charmingly boyish. "Sorry. I know it's been a while, I just..."

"Mm. It's okay. I wasn't expecting anything."

It wasn't just because of Shepard, and everything else they had lost, Steve realized. Some of the shine had worn off of their arrangement. It was no longer such a novel experience to have a sex life again, and to have it with James Vega of all people. He felt a twinge of loss for that first flush of intimate connection, for the opportunity to have James so eager to learn him.

They had learned now. They had put a war behind them, together.

"The bunk's tiny," Steve said, and felt another yawn welling up. "I'll fix you a bed on the couch."

He left James blanketed and huddled into the couch frame, tiny compared to his bulk. The sheets were cool and clean, and Steve slipped between them with an exhausted sigh, closing his eyes into the heavy, blessed darkness.

It didn't take long before he was woken up from half-sleep by James, nudging his way into the bed in his unsubtle manner.

"Seriously, there's no room," Steve mumbled, but shifted closer to the wall anyway. "We'll be smothered."

"Gonna be fine," James insisted, and shoved his knee into Steve's thigh.

At least he'd brought his own pillow. Steve sighed, and settled the best he could, unable to keep his eyes open long enough to argue. The parts of him that weren't pushed against the wall or trapped under James's weight did feel pretty good, warm and not alone. James started snoring softly the moment he found his place. Steve had always liked that sound. It wasn't long before he grasped again the sleep he'd momentarily lost.

Sometime later, well into a weird dream taking place in an ancient submarine, Steve was woken up again by the faint signal of his comm link. He groaned and reached over the blissfully slumbering James, blindly fumbling the link into his hand from the nearby shelf.

"Hey. Cortez?" Traynor's voice burst from the link. "Hey, I know, it's late, I'm sorry. I promise I'll be brief. You were in the Psi Tophet system with the commander, right?"

Steve did his best to slap his brain awake. "Come again?"

"Psi Tophet? Planet 2181 Despoina? Where some kind of an energy burst took you down?"

The memory jolted to the forefront, and Steve sat up as best he could. "Yeah. Yeah, that's right. What..."

"It's a long shot, I know, but do you know what happened to the shuttle sensor readings? The Normandy's databanks didn't have them. They were probably dismissed as unimportant. I thought I'd check, since you practically lived in the Kodiak, I thought you if anyone..."

"I think I have them." Steve suppressed a yawn and brought up his omni-tool search screen. "I copied the Kodiak's datastores into my omni-tool after the crash. Standard blackbox procedure."

It wasn't Alliance procedure, but it was the bare minimum standard for him.

"There. Sent the file to you."

"Thank you. You're the best," Traynor told him, voice alight with sincere gratitude.

Steve lay down again, and let his eyes slip closed as he switched off the omni-tool. "Hope it helps," he mumbled.

"I hope so, too. One of the relay rebuilding teams had a weird accident. Sudden loss of power, strange communications. Sounds familiar, right? We're just guessing at a cause for now, but the admiral takes sabotage very seriously. If I were you I'd brace myself for a call from him, too."

"Tomorrow," Steve said, barely awake. He thought about Despoina, in spite of himself, smelled the harsh ocean air over the dead and the looming depths. God, he'd hated that place. It had kept him from flying.

Traynor chuckled. "Tomorrow. Sleep tight."

Steve let the comm link fall down, threw his arm over James's waist and slept, dreaming of the deep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to Junemermaid, for the sharp beta and warm encouragement, and to Stonestrewn, for the sweet comments! Next chapter shouldn't take as long as this one did. The first three chapters are a prologue of a sort for the actual plot. I know, long effing prologue, but I had a lot of character interaction to get through!


	4. Chapter 4

Vega was out of all options but the most obvious. He kicked the door until it gave enough to give him a good hold, and pulled it open. Once he made it inside the unlit lab he gave it a quick sweep, but the radio silence and the dead scan had already told the story loud and clear. 

”Same thing here, LC!”

Ash's sigh crackled a bit on the comm line. Vega could hear the frown her helmet hid. ”Dammit. At least tell me we got logs of some kind. I'm not bringing Hackett nothing but bad news again.”

”Everything looks intact.”

Vega's eyes followed the bunches of power cords, snaking along the walls, untouched. The computers didn't have a scratch on them; even the picture frames and stupid little desk ornaments were all in place. If the kidnappers who had taken the scientists had tried to sabotage their work, they'd either done a piss-poor job or a great one. He found the nearest research station and tried switching it on.

”Might help if you hook it up to your omni-tool first,” Ash said, tapping his wrist. ”Considering we just saw the power's cut.” 

Vega made a face, knowing the helmet would hide it. Usually he liked it when she cut to the chase, but the command of the Normandy had made her even more hard-assed. If she couldn't fuck up without causing Alliance-wide outrage, neither could anyone else on her crew. Sometimes he missed her more laid-back moments. She had a great laugh.

”Right. You don't suppose the data stores were wiped when they fried the generator?”

”Doubt it. We would've seen some charring around the wiring.” Ash gestured with her rifle. ”I'm gonna check out the equipment stores, see if anything's missing.”

”Copy that.”

Vega's omni-tool flared to life along with the research screen. It took a moment for the software to make sense of the salarian text. Most files were code-locked, but there were two files open on something to do with relay energy buildup. He couldn't make head or tail of them, in salarian or not. Instead, he dug around in the shared files, located the security footage, and hit play on the newest entry. He was treated to the exciting view of a roomful of salarians and asari hard at engineering work.

”Got Hackett his logs,” he told Ash.

”Great. Maybe he won't bite your head off.”

”Mine? What, is your neck extra chewy or something?”

”Spectre immunity,” Ash declared, without much joy. With the assignments she was getting, tossed around between panicking galactic powers to sort out their messes, Vega couldn't blame her.

As if out of some secret agreement, the scientists on the screen stopped what they were doing, stood up and left their stations.

”Whoa.” Vega paused the recording just when the last salarian was leaving the room. His dark eyes stared passively in the general direction of the recorder. ”I think I just saw all the engineers walk out. That's... around two minutes before the power was cut.”

Ash grunted, probably lifting something. ”All of them? Describe the team to me, James.”

”Two asari, nine salarians, all of 'em. They look... I don't know, drugged up. Something ain't right here.”

”You sure there wasn't a Collector among them? One of those re-mind-scrambled ones?”

”Yeah, I'm sure. Don'tcha think I know what a Collector looks like?” Vega's omni-tool finished copying all the data from the research unit, so he slapped it closed and made to follow Ash.

”I just found Collector gear in the only open locker.”

Vega bit his teeth, rounding a corner. The station layout was getting familiar, after walking through three identical relay repair sites. ”I fucking knew it. Those things still got some Reaper code stuck in their heads or something. Maybe they used that swarming crap to make these people walk out to be kidnapped.”

”The swarms made people freeze, not walk. And if the bugs are doing it for the Reapers, they're a little slow on the uptake.” Ash stepped out of the locker room, tossing a Collector helmet aside. ”Also, they left their stuff behind. Let's get out of here. For good or bad, this place is clear.”

Vega looked around one more time. Not a sign of struggle or resistance, not even a dead bug. If it had been a Collector harvesting, it was a weird one. At least the replacement team wouldn't have to fix up the place.

”Hey, Esteban? C'mon down, we're ready to head back.”

He'd almost said 'head home', even though the Normandy didn't feel the same anymore. It had a VI with a different voice. Joker didn't joke much these days. Ash had done her best to hold on to the old crew, but the Alliance and the Council pulled it apart any chance they got, trying to make the numbers stretch. Without the relays, every delivery, data or equipment, took forever, and it was vulnerable the whole way.

Although playing detective to the mystery of missing scientists wasn't his idea of a great time, Vega knew the significance of the repair stations. The relay repairs couldn't happen fast enough. As far as Vega understood it, having them back in action would put a whole lot of smugglers and pirates and looters out of a job.

None of these sabotage attempts made much sense, though. This was too sophisticated for some ship-robbers with scavenged gear. At first, they hadn't even been taken for sabotages, simply strange accidents at the relay sites. Equipment malfunctions, miscommunications, anything you could expect of a big operation like that.

And now there was a whole team missing.

”Admiral Hackett on the comm for you, LC,” Cortez said, as soon as they got their helmets off. He tapped the screen on, and Ash met the admiral's gaze. The line was bad, but it was always bad these days.

”Lieutenant Commander,” the admiral said through the static. Maybe Vega was imagining it, but he looked tired. ”There's been a development. What did you find on Station R-867?”

Ash kept her face neutral. No point showing concern when there was barely any news to be told. ”It looks like some of those Collectors that broke free of the Reaper mind control have gone rogue, sir. But we've got nothing definitive yet. The scientists appear to have left the station out of their own free will. I'm sure when we go through the logs--”

”The engineering team has been located,” Hackett interrupted her. ”On a refueling station in the Balor System.”

”In Balor?” Ash was obviously trying to calculate the distance. ”That would mean-- Have they given any explanation to abandoning their post like that?”

On the flickering screen, Hackett's face was still strained. ”Send me those logs, LC Williams. They might help explain why none of the team seem to remember anything about the past three weeks.”

 

*

The data screens had piled up so high around Samantha's head that she didn't see Liara approaching before her hand brushed through one of them.

”Specialist Traynor? Do you have a minute?”

The screens stacked down in a second as she switched her omni-tool to standby, focused on the Normandy's comm station again. ”Absolutely. What can I do for you, Dr. T'Soni?”

”I heard from Tali that you've been researching transmission decryptions.”

Samantha wondered how much Tali had told her, worry curling in the pit of her stomach. Her theories weren't exactly Alliance-sanctioned. But she had needed a sounding board, and Tali had been invaluable in so many aspects. Quarians seemed to have a knack for corpus linguistics, whether they realised it or not.

That particular quarian also had the same soft spot for musicals Samantha had, which made spending time with her all the easier. She was quite happy to provide some distraction for a busy admiral missing home.

”It's a comm traffic priority issue, with the mass relays out of commission,” Samantha told Liara. If she sounded a tad defensive, well. Speaking to the Shadow Broker should have made any comm specialist cautious.

Liara accepted her explanation without any fuss. ”I was just curious. Secure data delivery is... vital to my work.”

Samantha could only imagine how much the destruction of the relays had crippled the Shadow Broker's day to day operations, not that Liara complained. She had always seemed to prefer keeping her open secret close, even onboard the Normandy where she still kept her main operations centre. With Shepard, her closest confidante and lover gone, she had become an increasingly isolated operator. Williams occasionally had words with her, but they seemed determined to give each other space. None of their conversations lasted long, as if they were afraid of where they might veer, left unchecked.

”I've been researching AI networking, actually,” Samantha divulged. ”It's... well, it's a safe and theoretical subject right now.”

She wouldn't have put it _quite_ like that to Tali. With all the geth utterly nonoperational, her species looked forward to a long and rocky road to suit-free life in their new home.

Liara's eyes became unfocused, giving away her double-tasking mind. ”Sounds fascinating. I think I've read a paper on wide-range quantum entanglement networks. Theoretical, as you said, but think of the benefits.” She paused. ”And the dangers. Would you inform me if you come up with any ideas?”

”Of course, Dr. T'Soni.”

Liara nodded and left her to her work. Samantha hastily brought up the usual Normandy comm grid screens, and kept her own close to her omni-tool.

She couldn't bring herself to tell anyone that the security threat she was trying to combat was anything but theoretical. Ever since the Pulse, she had been tracking quiet transmissions within transmissions, like swift little search agent programs riding along, fetching information for... who? Who was sitting by, not interfering, content with listening in silence?

Anyone could have been interested in Alliance communications. For all their work in restoration, they weren't popular among fringe groups and ambitious politicians. Too military-minded, too Earth-focused, or exactly the opposite; it didn't seem to matter. The war had left everything in shambles, so people wanted a scapegoat, and the Alliance was everywhere. But Samantha had carefully examined communications between the Council and Williams, their only surviving human Spectre, and found the same transmissions.

She had found them in innocuous reports from mass relay restoration teams, from colony reports, from asari news forecasts, and after two months, she still had no method for filtering them.

The sole saving grace was that for all her monitoring, she couldn't detect any signs of that spied information being put to use. Whoever was playing on the frequencies, they were prepared for the long game. It could mean she'd have the time to fine-tune the defenses on the Normandy's lines of communication, at least.

A new personal message chimed in, saving her from her own circling doubts. Only the ship's internal mail was delivered without a hitch, so she wasn't surprised to see Gabby's name on the screen.

_Arimaa in two hours instead of one? Sorry, have to shower first._

Samantha smiled while she tapped out the answer, one-handed. _No problem. Sweaty day?_

_Engine-crawly. And other things that aren't words. Have to get back to it, see you then._

By Gabby's standards, she was getting positively prolix in her correspondence. Her first reply had been a hasty ”k”. Samantha let satisfaction swell in her chest. She was an only child; she had never had the pleasure of being a terrible influence before.

Her proud little moment was interrupted by LC Williams, marching into the CIC with Lieutenant Vega following close behind. They didn't look happy. ”Traynor,” she called. ”Get me the last known assignments and locations of the deprogrammed Collectors.”

The name still gave her chills, years after Horizon, but Samantha managed to suppress them. Her parents were all right. They were safe and she would call them that night.

”Yes, ma'am.” 

She made use of the flimsy connection before it failed again. Ironic that this had used to be a sure-fire zone, as close to the relay as they could be. Now they were far from the nearest functional buoy. ”There are fifty-six living Collectors marked in the registry. One was stationed right here in R-867. Other assignments...”

Williams paused between one step and the next and turned to give her a piercing look. ”Yes?”

Samantha wetted her lips. ”All recent assignments are in R-stations, ma'am.”

”See? What did I tell you!” James Vega had never been the type to hold back his reactions. 

”On whose orders?” Williams demanded, frowning deeply.

”Just a second...” Samantha boosted the signal the best she could, and it held long enough to let her data requests through. ”Lead scientists in the teams requested them. In every team.”

Williams bit the inside of her cheek. Her frown hadn't eased a fraction. ”Get me one of the team leaders on the line. I wanna get to the bottom of this.”

While both Williams and James paced around her, Samantha found the closest station and sent a hail and a prayer that her signal-boosters would be up for the challenge. After a tense minute, a Dr. Syed answered through the static. The vid feed was out of the question, so Samantha put him on speaker.

”Yes? Hello? This is R-866. How can I help you, Normandy?”

His voice had a familiar, lilting cadence. Samantha leaned closer, parsing his accent through the interference. Word emphasis was a vocal fingerprint.

”Dr. Syed, this is Lieutenant Commander Williams. I'd like a report on your current situation.”

Samantha prided herself on never forgetting a voice. She must have heard his before.

”Certainly. We are currently on schedule, ahead in electronic work due to the downtime regulations. May I ask...?”

Williams was getting impatient. She really had no flair for negotiations. ”You assembled the current team, Dr. Syed. Seven humans, two salarians and a Collector. How's everybody working together?”

Syed paused, probably coughing politely to the side. ”We've had no interpersonal difficulties, Lieutenant Commander.”

”Not even with the Collector?”

”Absolutely none. His appearance was... intimidating, at first, but he's proven invaluable to the on-site joining process. We're glad to have him, ma'am.”

Syed's accent unlocked in Samantha's mind. Her brain itched with it, demanded her to re-assemble the pieces of the puzzle. The picture made no sense.

Williams signed for James to head to the lift before her. ”We'll be making a quick stop by the station, Dr. Syed, and we'd like a word with him. No reason to be alarmed. We've just got a couple of questions.”

”Certainly,” Syed repeated, his confusion clear enough even through the terrible line.

As soon as the call ended, Samantha shot up to her feet and ran after Williams. If it had been Shepard, she found herself thinking, she might have grabbed her arm. Williams wasn't intimidating to her in any of the more obvious ways; Samantha had mixed her a drink and quoted poetry with her, she was real and human instead of an icon. It just seemed to Samantha that she didn't have the _right_. Williams was casual with the other soldiers on occasion, but Samantha had served the Alliance in the lab instead of the battlefield. She couldn't lay claim to the same kind of camaraderie.

”Lieutenant Commander,” she said, out of breath with anxiousness. ”Please... Be careful on Station R-866. Something's strange about Dr. Syed.”

Williams sighed. ”Yeah, I know, Traynor. We better reach him before he decides to walk out with amnesia, too.”

”No, I-- The accent's faint but he has it, and I think I've heard his voice before. He's from Horizon, ma'am.” Samantha swallowed through a dry throat.

James swore in Spanish. ”Horizon? What the hell does that mean? He's either the most forgiving son of a bitch on this side of the galaxy, or--”

”Or we might have an impostor on our hands.” Williams's lip twitched with annoyance. ”Great. Looks like we're having a chat with more than just his bug friend.”

She made to leave, but then turned back. Her armoured hand on Samantha's shoulder was an unexpected weight, too fleeting to be reassuring. ”Good catch, Specialist.”

Samantha smiled, shyly triumphant. ”Thank you, ma'am.”

 

*

Vega could have scripted this shit out beforehand.

”I'm sorry, Lieutenant Commander,” the ash-grey salarian said, wringing his hands. ”Our Collector friend appears to be... unavailable. It... _he's_ not at his work station, nor in the living quarters.”

Ash hoisted her rifle securely into her hand. ”All right. I want you to inform your team leader and gather everyone into the main research lab. Close the doors, back up your data and get ready for evacuation.” She nodded to Vega. No need for orders; he knew where they were headed.

They jogged down the narrow hallway towards the generator room, and Vega readied his assault rifle, too. That sneaky bug wasn't disappearing off this station. ”How we gonna play this?”

”Straight up,” Ash replied, nudging the door control with her elbow. ”He resists arrest, you know what to do. We're not losing another station.”

”That's what I like to hear.” Vega grinned, and ducked inside, his suit sensors scanning his surroundings as he bent into a crouch. The light was crap anyway, emergency reds with the odd slice of harsh machine glow, and the thermo readings weren't much better with the generator throwing them off. The railings of the stairs leading to the generator offered no cover. The room was two levels high, the stairs winding around the generator's bulky frame above them. They were on a silver platter for anyone with a decent scope on their gun.

All the more reason to keep moving. Vega got halfway up the stairs before the sensors alerted him to movement on the other side of the generator, where the control panels were.

Ash was two seconds behind him. ”You, on the generator platform! Step into the light! Let me see your hands!”

The Collector clicked and trilled in its bug language as it moved back from the panel. It was tall for its kind, and seemed to have green light for ligaments. Its eyes were like headlamps when they turned to them. Vega didn't lower his gun. The Collector was unarmed, but he took no risks with those things.

”We're taking you in for ques--” 

Some of the shifting green light separated from its source, and was flung in their direction, spreading like a web of distortion to the air. Vega didn't have a lot of room to maneuver, so he simply threw himself down, and then jumped up into an aim. His first burstfire hit nothing but railing and metal floor. The Collector had leapt into the air, heading to the stairs on the other side of the room.

Ash cried out behind him. She had better aim; her second shot hit the bug in the leg, and it made a grab for the stairs, hauling itself up clumsily. Vega broke into a sprint, jumping half a flight of stairs before firing up again. Damn, the bug was fast on its biotic feet. It maneuvered like an actual glowbug in the air, shielding itself from Ash's fire. Together, they pushed it back towards the door, away from the generator.

They were hot on its heels in the hallway on the other side of the door, but Vega remembered that it led to crew quarters. Shit. They didn't need a bug lashing every which way with biotic energy when there were non-combatants on the scene. He tried to stick close to it, even though it had some kind of shielding on that his sensors read as an electric scrambler. No matter, though. His suit could handle it.

The moment he rounded the corner, someone shot a dent into the armor covering his upper right arm, narrowly missing his face and making his heart miss a couple of beats. Taught him right, to be running around with no helmet on. He raised a hand to hold Ash back and hugged the wall. They glanced at each other in the second Vega took to catch his breath. The bug had been unarmed.

”Stand down!” Ash called. ”We're with the Alliance!”

A man's voice answered. It was strange and nasal; probably a salarian. ”Then why are you attacking one of our team? Stay there! I'm warning you!”

”We just want to talk to him,” Ash said, through her teeth, gripping her gun harder. Now that Vega looked at her, he realized she had taken some fire. Only biotic shock made Ash's hands unsteady. ”I repeat, stand down. The only one attacking here's your teammate.”

”No! No, he would never do such a thing!” Another shot cut their way as a warning. ”You lie! You're not Alliance at all! Stay back!”

”It's getting away,” Ash hissed to Vega, hitting the wall behind her with her fist.

”Go,” he replied without even thinking about it. ”I'll cover you.”

Ash's level stare was pretty touching. All this time, through Reaper War and back, and he could still throw her. ”He might not be alone.”

”And he's a decent shot. I know, I've got it. _Go_ , LC.”

With the barest of signs, they folded on their helmets and turned the corner together, Ash crouched down while Vega let the clip burn down, shooting one of the ceiling lights off. The salarian hadn't been alone; there were two humans in the room with him, one about to pull out her own pistol. Vega made a lightning-quick assessment as the shots rained on his armor: open space, tables, chairs. Plenty of flimsy cover. He took hold of a table leg and threw the table over easily, diving behind it when the other scientist with a gun found her aim. It would shield Ash's first couple of steps, too. After that it was up to her own speed.

”You'll never take us alive!” the salarian screeched, as unhinged as salarian hinges went. With some luck, his aim would be off, now that he was working himself up into a fit. 

Vega shoved in a new clip and got up enough to draw the eye, aiming his shots at the furniture. His armor sensors let him know what a moron he was for standing up; his shields were down to 60% in seconds in the crossfire. Pistol shots had little kick behind them, but they still burned through shielding, taking his armor closer and closer to a useless lump of cover. From the corner of his eye, he saw movement in the shape and colour of Ash, though. That was the only thing that mattered, he told himself.

The table was shot into a sieve, so he threw it in the direction of the salarian and rolled over to the cluster of chairs in the middle of the room. One made for just enough of a shield that the humans couldn't get a good shot at his helmet while he sprinted towards the door. 47% shielding was pitiful against a biotic, but it'd have to do if Ash didn't get to the bug first.

The scientists were hot at his heels when he reached the doorway, screaming for him to stop. He had to knock one of their pistols up and shove their hands inside in order to get the door closed. If he broke a few fingers at it, tough shit; they shouldn't have been working an important post like this if they were this close to snapping. No time to think about the weirdness of it, though. He kicked over a pile of crates, figuring the locking system on the door wouldn't hold for long, and ran after Ash.

A sign pointed him towards the hangar bay. He couldn't hear any engines warming, and it gave him a slice of hope.

”Ash, you got it?” he called into the comm.

Nothing but damn silence. Vega never wanted to hear that on the comm line. He paused at the hangar door, and activated the tracer to locate Ash's signal. It came from a lower deck, against all reason. Why the hell would the bug have run into a dead-end when the hangar was right there?

 _Mierda_ , nothing about this matched up.

He threw himself down the stairs, hearing commotion from behind. The other scientists had caught up, probably. They'd have to hurry up before they were the ones caught in a dead-end, just in case that trigger-happiness was spreading. The hallway led to nothing but storage space, but it was where Ash's signal was coming from. It hadn't moved. Not good.

Vega slapped his hand against the door controls and did a sideways roll in, in case the bug was waiting, but his shields were spared another crossfire. Instead, his suit's systems suddenly glitched in a major way, filling his senses with screeching warnings and flashing lights. He crouched behind a crate and shut off everything he could, but could still hear a buzz, like an angry, trapped insect swarm. It itched deep in his ears, like a voice so high he couldn't quite hear it.

The Collector was standing between two tall containers, picking up something from the open crate in front of it. It was as round as an egg, and not a gun, as Vega had first thought.

Ash stood there at the perfect point-blank range. She didn't move, just stared at the bug's back like she didn't even know what was going on. Her rifle was on the floor. She looked naked without it. The air was thick with the buzzing noise; it seemed to be coming from the bug somehow, no surprise there, and pierced through Vega's head like some kind of a sonic field.

When he raised his rifle, his arm weighed a ton. His grip shook, which was goddamn ridiculous, but his muscles refused to obey. _Snap out of it_ , he ordered himself. _There's nothing wrong with your arm. Take aim. Come on, soldier._

The bug turned around, and Vega forced his leaden fingers to bend. It didn't hurt, but for a few seconds it felt wrong, twisting his insides like the worst fuck-up of his life. The Collector had no biotic barriers up, and the energy pierced through the cracks in its armored body, dimming three of its eyes. Biotic force distorted the air between them in the narrow space, coloring it an eye-watering green, and Vega used both hands to squeeze another burst out of his rifle.

It did nothing to slow down the warp that burned into him, throwing his stiff and resisting body back without any chance of breaking the fall. His gunfire hit something that made a wet bursting noise.

He scrambled up, aware that the Collector was still standing. The buzzing was gone, leaving behind a sweet silence between breaths, and his limbs moved like they should. Vega folded his scratched helmet visor out of the way just in time to see Ash dive for her gun and aim it at the Collector. It went for another angry burst of biotic energy, but Ash was quicker, and shot out the rest of its eyes.

”That's that, then,” Vega said, catching his breath as he went to Ash.

She was heaving hard breaths, too, eyes shock-wide. ”I couldn't move. I didn't _want_ to move, James.” 

”Yeah. I think I felt it, too. But I didn't see any swarms.”

”Exactly. This was... I don't know what this was. But at least it's over.”

She sniffed and straightened her back, stepping closer to inspect the Collector corpse. It was covered in some kind of a wet, sticky substance. Vega had never seen them bleed like that.

”It was holding something,” Ash said, and gestured towards the crate. Its sides were carefully padded; a round object about the size of a large football had been removed.

There was no sign of it now. ”I must've shattered it when I was firing at the bug.”

”In that case it was organic, 'cause I don't see--”

They both spun around to aim at the doorway at the sound of a footfall. The salarian with the decent shooting arm raised his hands, blinking in distress.

”Please, don't shoot!”

Ash sighed. She lowered her rifle, but didn't put it away. ”I told you, sir. We're Alliance. Your workmate here was caught in the act of sabotaging this station. You want to try and let us explain this time?”

The salarian continued to blink when his gaze wandered to the dead Collector. He wasn't armed anymore. ”I've... never spoken to you before. And we don't work with those... things. Did the Alliance send you? Why weren't we notified?”

Vega and Ash exchanged a look.

”Sir, why don't you find Dr. Syed and sit tight,” Ash said, slowly and emphatically. ”We'll get to the bottom of this.”

The salarian looked a little dubious, but he left them alone.

”You okay?” Ash asked while she put away the rifle. ”You took some serious fire earlier.”

”Shields ate it.” Vega shrugged. The movement stirred up the tingling afterburn of the biotic blast, and he grimaced. ”Took some warp-field to the face, but it's not too bad.”

”Go see Dr. Chakwas when we're ship-side again, just to be sure.” Ash paused. Her lips thinned into a tight line. ”We can go see her together. I wanna know what the hell happened to me.”

Vega couldn't blame her for the grim curiosity. He didn't like having his head fucked with, either. A memory tugged at him, something uncomfortably familiar, but it was gone when he tried to grasp it. He swung his assault rifle into its place, and followed Ash to find Dr. Syed again. Vega could bet his right nut that the guy would claim he'd never spoken to them either.

They left the Collector lying there, although both of them glanced over their shoulder at it, uneasily.

*

As devastating as the war had been, Steve was starting to feel a little lost at sea in its absence. There was no life to return to for him. Since the defeat of the Reapers, he had mostly made deliveries for the Alliance war relief effort and flown troops to conflict areas. Technically, he was still assigned to the Normandy, but the LC had little use for a pilot and procurement was as thorny as post-war issues went, so he kept the new shuttle in shining condition in his spare time and waited. He had some talent in that, too.

James shifted impatiently next to him, his eyes straying to Steve for a brief check before focusing on Williams. He had taken to doing that a lot. James couldn't seem to settle into the post-war assignments, either, taking impatient risks. He'd had his new armor for only a month, and it was already scuffed, needing constant finetuning. There was a buzz of anticipation about him even now, something more than eagerness. It was a _hunger_ for action that explained so many things about James, his charm included. Steve felt the pull of it tug him along.

It made him feel a bit sick to be missing something from the war, but there was no denying the itch within his gut to get out there and get flying. 

To be standing around the table with the team again felt like a giddy homecoming. He was used to standing at the back, not having much to contribute when there were so many more opinionated minds gathered in the room, but Shepard had insisted that the whole team be present for all mission briefings and LC Williams carried on the legacy. 

”Chakwas, Tali, talk to me,” she said from the head of the table. ”Are these Collectors indoctrinated?”

”There was some kinda--” James started, but Dr Chakwas stepped to the table and spoke right over him with the ease of someone used to claiming their own space.

”My conclusion, based on the brain scans of Dr Syed and you, Lieutenant Commander, would be no, I don't believe indoctrination is in effect here. With Reaper indoctrination, I would expect immediate and considerable damage to key areas in the brain dealing with memory, the globus pallidus and the cerebellum in particular.” She turned her palms up and waved her fingers as she searched for words. The gesture reminded Steve of an artist reaching for inspiration. ”The Collector, the R-station scientists and you were all clearly affected. It's not unreasonable to assume the source of that effect is the same. What that source is... I couldn't say with any accuracy, ma'am.”

Williams pursed her lips, looking like she was going through the pieces of the puzzle in her head to see what might fit. ”Tali? What about that thing it had brought to the station?”

Steve wasn't a master at reading quarian body language, but he could still pick out frustrated bafflement. ”I'm sorry, but I have to echo Dr Chakwas. Nothing onboard the two stations I examined has a trace of Reaper code in its systems, and I found no sign of constructs or artifacts of Reaper origin.”

”There _was_ some kinda object, though,” James finally managed to put in.

Tali turned to him. ”That's what I started from. I went through that whole storage department. Of course, it might've helped with the analysis of the object if you hadn't shot it at point blank.”

James opened his mouth, then closed it again after a glance at Williams, withdrawing from the table and crossing his arms over his chest as if to physically keep any further comments to himself.

”Could we be dealing with some new tech the Collectors have put together?” Garrus ventured. ”Maybe a sonic emitter, or a back-engineered indoctrination device?”

Liara was vigorously shaking her head before he'd even finished. The light, black scarf she had taken to wearing around her neck as a sign of mourning billowed and settled. ”Their society is basically a ruin of a ruin, developed and modified for a singular purpose twice over. What you're talking about would call for initiative and innovation unlike anything we've witnessed so far.”

Her gaze fell on Javik, and she hesitated. If she was waiting for his agreement or permission, he didn't give it, or any discernable reaction except flared nostrils. Steve felt for her. He had learned by observation that the prothean was not blind to social cues, simply dismissive of them, single-minded to a worrying point.

Williams cut the awkward silence short. ”Any insight you'd like to add, Javik?”

”No,” he replied, turning to her. ”But I suggest you deal with the problem of treacherous Collectors fast and effectively. Debating their motives is a dangerous waste of time. Incapacitate them, before they can do the same to you.” He paused, and corrected himself with obvious difficulty. ”Us.”

To Steve's surprise, Williams smiled at that, slanted and rueful but true. ”You don't have to tell me that. The Council and the Alliance brass are both riding my ass on this one. The relays are –- they're more than just a convenience. They're a symbol of how far we've all come, as species.” Williams took a breath, and her stance changed, easily sliding from informal back to the commander on deck. ”So let's not screw this up, people. Once we reach the next R-station, we're not going in blind. I want two teams in, and no one leaving without our say-so. We'll comb the place, apprehend the b-- Collectors and try not to blow up the evidence this time.”

James glanced at Steve, feigning outrage so badly Steve had to smile before focusing on the LC again.

”I don't think that's necessarily our best bet,” Tali said, picking her words carefully. ”We're a step behind the Collectors. They've had ample time to regroup and restrategize, while we--”

”We have a duty to the R-station teams,” Williams interrupted, every bit the LC now.

Tali raised her hand, palm outwards. ”Ashley-- _Captain_. If we want to get ahead of the curve, I suggest we try to apprehend the minds behind the Collectors. Like Liara said, it's doubtful they're working for themselves. Maybe if we followed their communications...”

Williams stared at her for a few tense seconds, mulling the suggestion over, holding herself absolutely still.

”Traynor?” she finally said, glancing at the comm specialist without moving her head.

Traynor jumped into attention. Like Steve, she had been hanging back. ”I'm already on it, Lieutenant Commander. Without the relays, data bounces from local buoys, making it much easier to trace. I can tell you with a 99 percent certainty that the Collector in the station you searched did not initiate any communication with an outside source.”

No trace to follow, then. Steve bit his cheek, leaning back against the wall. The others around the table sagged a bit, too, momentarily at a loss. He could sense it in the air that he wasn't the only one feeling the absence of their spitfire of a commander, full of unconventional ideas and a singular drive to push them to action. Williams was highly competent, but she didn't fill those boots yet, feeling her way through leading them. It didn't come naturally to her, unlike Shepard.

”But... that would mean long-term infiltration tactics. The lack of communication suggests a high level of initiative in the agents.” Liara frowned, her fingers drumming the table. ”It makes no sense. Why pick the Collectors for such a task? If they're even capable, they're far from ideal for the purpose.”

Steve saw Traynor wet her lips and steel her spine. She took a step closer to the table, and although her voice was relatively quiet, the words dropped into the hush of confusion like stones into water, sinking in. ”They might have an alternative method of communication.”

Williams looked slightly taken back. ”Go on.”

Traynor had the attention of everyone in the room, which she seemed to be doing her best to ignore. ”I'm talking about the original method of both communication and indoctrination that predates the Reapers.”

”You mean the Leviathans?” Steve found himself saying. A cold memory pushed the words out, squeezed his throat and filled his nostrils with the smell of the sea. She had asked him about Despoina, he recalled now. He hadn't been to the freezing depths of its ocean like Shepard, but even he had sensed the presence, the influence of something vast and old and powerful. James tensed with the memory too, his fingers curving towards fists.

”Yes.” She nodded briefly, not just to him. ”We know they use organic indoctrination devices. What if the object Lieutenant Vega destroyed on R-866 was one of them?”

A shocked murmur went around the room like a sudden breeze. Williams's throat worked.

Tali sidled closer to Traynor. ”But the Leviathans are allied with us, aren't they?”

”The Rachni also possess organic devices that we have yet to study in any meaningful way,” Dr. Chakwas pointed out. ”Perhaps if a queen were to go rogue...”

Traynor's spine was still drawn straight. She was holding back something else, Steve realized, staring at her with a new regard. The comm specialist was young and green, but she had initiative. If she had been a pilot, Steve would've said she had the feel for atmo.

”There are no Rachni in R-stations,” Williams argued. ”Have you ever known them to act without deploying their 'children'?”

”The Leviathans seem a better fit,” Tali admitted, reluctantly.

Steve didn't like the thought any more than she did. He had waited for Shepard to return from the depths where the Leviathans had dwelt, and felt as helpless as he did now. Ally or not, there was something unreachable about the ancient beings, something that defied comprehension. Would they even see this act as treachery?

”If it's info on the Leviathans we need, we should talk to Ann. Dr Bryson. You remember that lab?” James nudged Steve.

”It was on the Citadel,” Steve reminded him. ”Little more than a ruin now, I should think.”

Williams grasped eagerly at the lead. ”Liara, what do you think? You've worked closely with the restoration effort.”

Liara's gaze wandered. Her fingers rubbed at the end of her scarf. ”Large sections of the Citadel have survived. It's a more likely source of information than the R-stations, if the Collectors have fled. Two of their agents have been discovered; I doubt the rest have wasted any time.” Her eyes widened. ”And the Leviathans were the ones who freed the Collectors from Reaper indoctrination in the first place. If there's a – a link, some kind of a telepathic bond, it could have been present in their minds ever since they allied with us.”

”There's an unsettling thought,” Garrus muttered.

”It's even more unsettling than you think,” Traynor said in a grave tone. ”I... I cannot be certain, not absolutely certain, but after closely examining data traffic after the Pulse, I have reason to suspect those organic communication links are more wide-spread than the R-stations.”

Williams forgot to retreat behind the safety of authority, fear of the unknown lurking at the edges of her expression. ”So what you're saying...”

A nervous laugh escaped Traynor before she gathered herself, biting her lip. ”I'm saying that I don't believe it safe to communicate any of this to the Alliance high command or the Council before you can do so in person, ma'am.” She paused, for effect or for air. ”Because they could be listening in. They could be listening in to all our transmissions.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this chapter took ages to post. My dear beta reader and I have both been busy. The good news is, now that I've got the plot ball rolling, I've written two chapters in one go. The next chapter is done, save for some finishing touches, and will be posted soon. Thank you, as always, for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

Steve took the shuttle up as soon as Williams and Bryson had let go of the probe, closing the door before they could hear a splash as it descended to the depths of Darwinian Trench. The flight trajectory couldn't be as steep as he would have liked it, with the heavy extra equipment onboard, but he wanted all the distance between the dark waters and them that he could muster while they circled.

Dr Bryson leaned over the main screen, both legs firmly planted, her good hand keeping her upright. Her left arm was tucked neatly under her jacket to keep it still. She looked pale, but not shaky. ”We have visual. I don't like the speed it's sinking. I'm giving it a little boost from the surfacing compulsors.”

”No,” Williams snapped, hovering by. ”Wait. You start up its engines now, and we might give away its location. Let it sink. The vegetation will slow it down.”

The monitoring equipment was using the shuttle's energy reserves and sensor readings, so Steve could bring the feed from the probe to show on his side screen. He didn't need to look around much to keep circling the Trench. It had been named by the human team who had discovered it on the uncolonized planetoid; not a true trench formed by tectonic plates, but a hole left by a meteorite, sinking almost to the core. Over millennia, it had filled with water and unique species. Some kind of seaweed brushed at the probe Bryson had deviced like thin, pale hands. Steve told himself he wasn't hoping that would be the only thing they'd find.

Liara paced the sparse room left in the shuttle. ”An evolutionary biology team from Earth was here eighteen months ago. I'm reading their published findings, but nothing points to any strange readings, or anything else that would suggest the Leviathans' presence.”

”You expect them to advertize?” Bryson gave her a quick glance before turning her attention back to her screen. She wore a grim expression that seemed carved to her face. She must have been in pain, from her busted arm at least. From what Steve had heard, she had received Liara's call in a hospital and hobbled out of there in less than an hour.

His heart missed a beat as something far larger than weeds brushed past the probe. The surface of its smooth skin undulated as it maneuvered through the water. The probe recorder painted everything a grainy green, but Steve could make out uneven stripes running down the creature. It was long and limbless, and its movements were strangely graceful.

”Eels,” Bryson said, without any sense of wonder. ”We're getting to the deeper levels.”

Williams looked around in the shuttle. ”Everybody stay sharp. Cortez, be prepared to send the flare in case we lose power.”

”Ready, LC.” Steve steeled his jaw. He was just getting used to the feel of the new shuttle; he wasn't looking forward to crash-landing it.

”Any sign of the transmission, Liara?”

”Not yet. I'll let you know.”

The shuttle was packed to the gills as it was, and far heavier than he liked it, but Steve was still sorry that Traynor wasn't there. It was her research they were using.

Then again, she was safer back on the Normandy.

The eels circled the probe as it sank deeper. They had no eyes that Steve could glimpse, but they kept opening their wide, snapper-like mouths. Perhaps they used echolocation. He didn't want to think too closely about it: a near bottomless pit, a hundred miles across, enormous blind eels screaming endlessly in its depths.

”This Trench is narrower than I thought,” Williams said, breaking the expectant silence that had fallen. ”The creature Shepard reported seeing would take up the whole floor.”

”The Leviathans can be expected to show some variation in appearance, despite their long evolutionary history.” Bryson sounded like she was reading aloud from a paper she had written. It reminded Steve of how Liara sometimes spoke of the protheans – when Javik wasn't present, of course. ”Still doubting we're in the right place, Lieutenant Commander?”

Williams shifted uncomfortably. ”A little. But you're the expert on Leviathan activity, Dr Bryson. I just hope we can find you something you can work with.”

Bryson's mouth twitched into a smile. ”Your predecessor was more given to leaps in the dark than you, LC Williams.”

”I know,” Williams agreed. Her voice was heartbreakingly quiet.

The waters around the probe couldn't have got any darker. Steve concentrated on his shuttle, running useless diagnostics to take his mind off it. He'd had enough nightmares of Despoina; he didn't need to add to them.

The wait was starting to seriously gnaw at their patience when Liara finally spoke up.

”I've got a faint signal!” She sounded out of breath. ”The data stream's similar to what Traynor isolated, but... I'm losing it; can you take us closer to the surface, please?”

Steve grudgingly obliged, letting the low waves lap at the bottom of the shuttle as it glided over the Trench. The feed from the probe showed nothing but endless water, as it had for a while now.

Bryson had turned around, finally abandoning the screen she had been hunched over for hours. ”Tell us what the readings say, Dr T'Soni.”

”There's... there's more than one signal,” Liara replied, confusion muffling her words. ”They're all faint, but not uniformly so. One's much clearer than the others.”

”The Leviathan?” Williams's hand nudged towards her rifle. She grasped her upper arm instead.

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw a shift on the screen: a shadow that passed.

”LC, we've got movement on the probe feed!” he called.

This time, it was impossible to miss. The shape of a Reaper would always be a red flag to his senses, spiking up his pulse, halting his breath. Somehow, the knowledge that it wasn't a Reaper but a member of their creator race didn't calm him down any.

”It is small,” Bryson said, as if to herself. ”Half the size that I was expecting. And look. Is it missing an arm?”

The probe turned in the water, obscuring the looming shape of the Leviathan. Steve glanced at the count on the bottom of the screen. It was nearing the estimated floor of the Trench.

”So far it hasn't reacted to the probe.” Williams walked from Liara to Bryson, her armored strides heavy. ”Keep your eyes on those signals, Liara. How many we got now?”

”A new one just appeared.” Liara wet her lips, a rare sign of nerves. ”The others reacted to it. I think it's a _network_ , Ashley.”

”It's on the move again!” Bryson sounded almost excited, her voice rising.

The feed screen was suddenly filled with a craggy surface, layered like some ancient rock formation. Steve was just starting to wonder if the probe had hit the floor when the rock formation opened a cluster of piercingly glowing eyes.

”The probe's going to hit it!” Bryson's hand was moving towards the controls.

”Not yet! Give it a minute!” Williams's voice brooked no argument. ”Keep recording, Liara.”

The probe turned agonizingly slowly, sweeping towards the empty waters. Then its steady slide down was interrupted, and it spun until all it sent were flashes of pillar-like legs, jagged rocks and strange, glowing mounds. When it settled, the screen filled with grainy darkness.

”I'm still getting a reading,” Liara said, a sliver of hope.

Williams leaned over Bryson, both of their eyes fixed on the screen. ”Bring it up as slowly as you can. Give it time to get us a good look.”

Steve imagined the propulsion mechanism coughing into life, down in the immense pressure. The darkness on the screen changed shade, proving that the probe really was moving.

”A spike in the signal!” Liara called out a warning. ”They must have noticed the probe!”

”Just say the word, LC,” Steve couldn't stop himself from saying.

Williams didn't give the word, nor any indication she had heard him.

The screen was nowhere big enough to show more than parts of the whole Leviathan, puny thought it may have been for its kind, but its movements were clearly impatient, thrashing against the water. When the probe turned just the right way, and showed the front of the creature again, it appeared to be perched on one of the faintly glowing mounds. As Steve watched in spite of his better judgment, the rock-like outgrowths of its skin pulled back, revealing an orifice of some kind. The Leviathan shuddered, the tips of its crab-like feet jittering, and pushed out a cloud of something that curdled the dark water into a muddy mess. In the middle of it, Steve thought he could make out a round shape. It glowed as it floated down, finding its place on the mound.

”It's laying eggs,” Bryson gasped out.

”No, I think I know what those are.” Williams straightened her spine, impossibly poised and calm. ”I've seen them before. It's making more enthrallment devices.”

The probe turned, offering a view of the Trench floor. By God, there must have been hundreds of the softly glowing spheres resting there. Waiting to be put to use.

”Now, LC?” Steve didn't give a good goddamn how panicked he sounded.

The feed cut off sharply. The screen turned a deeper, more absolute shade of black.

”Go, Cortez, get us out of here!” Williams marched over to him, as if to physically push him along.

The shuttle jumped to like it too had been itching to get out.

”Still getting a strong signal,” Liara reported. She hesitated for a second. ”Stronger than before. I think the Leviathan knows we're here.”

Williams's hands gripped the back of Steve's seat. ”Up, Cortez! Get as much distance between us and that thing as you can!”

Steve's gut reaction was a thorough approval, and yet... ”Ma'am, if it sends a disabling pulse after us, we'll drop from that much higher!”

”We'll make it! Go!”

LC Williams was a deep well to borrow faith from. Steve gave the weighed-down bird all he had, and it sped towards the blue sky, away from things that lurked in the depths. He only drew a breath once he could no longer see the Darwinian Trench. They were still flying. They were free.

Bryson switched off her equipment, quiet in the wake of what they had witnessed. ”I think we can rule out the strategy of hunting down and destroying all of the devices, Lieutenant Commander,” she said, too hushed to be sarcastic.

Williams hadn't let go of the back of the seat. ”You don't believe that was the only Leviathan capable of creating them.”

”No, I don't.” Bryson sighed, and looked apologetic. ”Redundancy as a survival mechanism, similar to multiple organs in krogans. They're all capable of it. Every single one.”

It came down to shielding themselves from the effects, then, Steve mused. He hoped Traynor had come up with something in the meanwhile. For now, distance did the trick well enough to soothe his nerves.

”The Council are going to love this,” Williams mumbled. Steve was probably not meant to hear it, but the engine purred low.

James had been hoping for a straightforward search-and-destroy, too. He hadn't said it, but Steve could read between his grunted lines. For his own part, he wasn't disappointed; he had long since stopped expecting any of their missions to be straightforward.

He was terrified, though, his joints stiff with it. Williams eyed him, and turned to discuss the recordings with Liara, and he could only hope that she hadn't read the horror on his face.

 

*

Samantha watched the clouds drift and familiar curves of the continents break the blue. She had seen more beautiful planets from orbit; stunning, colourful worlds full of megafauna and awe-inspiring atmospheric lights. Earth was drab in comparison. Its shape showed its age, and it now bore its war scars, ugly and jarring.

Still. It was the original home of her species. She should've felt more at ease gazing at it. Samantha sagged against the view screen, leaning her whole weight against its reassuringly cool surface. The ship was quiet around her, filled with an unending hum. It would never be broken by EDI's sweet voice again.

The Leviathans wouldn't rest. She shouldn't either, if she was to find a way to turn their clandestine network against them. But right then, she felt terribly tired.

"For the record," Garrus said behind her, "I don't think playing it safe was a bad decision."

Samantha hadn't heard him come in, but the turian was remarkably quiet on his feet. An accomplished sniper had to be, she mused.

"You don't?" Samantha had to look over her shoulder to make sure Garrus wasn't trying to humour her. He had always struck her as a perpetual risk-taker.

There was no flare to his mandibles, no sign of pity. "Not that the Alliance gives a damn what an out-of-work turian Reaper specialist thinks, but I think they would've dismissed all your theories if you'd brought the information to them earlier. Not enough punch. Military leaders need a lot of punch."

Samantha made a noncommital noise. "And what about the turian military leaders? Are you speaking from experience?"

Garrus sighed and leaned jauntily against the lounge bar. No one had set a drink on it since Shepard's funeral. "I've made my discreet inquiries. Understand that turian discretion works a little differently from the human version, but I managed to set up a face-to-face meeting with someone interested enough to come all this way to meet me."

"That's good to hear. You got the ball rolling." Samantha did her best to focus on small victories. A dull ache still clawed at her insides. Guilt and defeat made for a corrosive mixture.

The door opened, and Tali flew in, a pack thrown over her shoulder, her omni-tool still flaring orange. "Ashley? Keelah, she's not here either?" She heaved an exasperated breath into her mask.

Garrus cocked his head towards her. "She's already onboard Admiral Hackett's dreadnought. Any word from the Fleet?"

"Yes, which is why I'm in a hurry. I wanted to let her know before she left. Maybe I could risk the comms, this once." Tali paused. The rush bled from her stance. "Samantha? What's wrong?"

Samantha bit her lip. She felt like she should've dismissed her concern, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

"The Alliance admiral chewed her out but good," Garrus said, and his low tone eased the turian bluntness. "For not bringing the evidence of Leviathan activity immediately to their attention."

”It'll be fine,” Samantha hurried to explain. ”I'm not even officially subject to disciplinary action, I just-- I'm just--”

”Grounded,” Garrus finished.

”Garrus, please.” The cold view screen met Samantha's forehead with a soft thud.

She heard Garrus fidgeting with some small item on the bar. ”I-- Sorry.”

Tali took a few brisk steps until she could lay her hand on Samantha's shoulder. ”Will you be all right?”

”Yes,” Samantha said immediately, making a real effort to pull herself together. This pity party did no good to anyone. ”Yes, of course. I just wish-- I could do with a fizzy drink and a distracting vid or a dozen. But you're busy, and I haven't been able to reach Gabby, and I'm officially whining now, aren't I. Honestly, it's not that bad. I'll be fine.”

Tali hugged her closer for a moment. ”They'll be showering you with praise and career opportunities when you find a way to safeguard their communications.”

Samantha had to breathe out a laugh at that. ”No pressure, huh?”

”I have every faith in you.” Tali took a deep breath. It hissed through her filtering system. ”Now, I have to risk the comm channels. The trade route negotiations with the Vol Protectorate have gone well. I'm sure Ashley will be relieved to find she's bringing the Council new opportunities instead of just new threats.”

”Many will view the volus as a threat,” Garrus said. ”As Jimmy says, they hold too many cards. I think they're the only thing keeping the galactic market from collapsing.”

Tali shrugged. ”But it hasn't collapsed, has it?”

Garrus came closer and leaned towards her, well into her personal space. His mandibles trembled in puzzlement. ”You trust the Protectorate.”

Tali faced him, and matched his softer tone. ”Their representative called me 'Rannoch-clan'. I suppose it did the trick.”

”Ah.” Garrus's hand sought hers, and found it with ease. ”You must miss your new home.”

”I'm a quarian, Garrus,” she countered, but without any edge. ”I'm used to finding my home in ships.”

Samantha felt a bit like a third wheel in the room, even though she was pretty sure she knew what Tali meant. Going home and leaving the Normandy hadn't even occurred to her. And now she had been officially told to stay put.

_And not raise any more galaxy-wide concerns. Not unless I can find a way to fix them, at least._

Leaving the other two to have a few moments to themselves, she headed down to Engineering. It wasn't like Gabby to not answer her messages, and she must have left a dozen by now.

 

*

Dark dots started bubbling up from the edges of Steve's vision. He forced his lungs to accept air every time he lowered his arms, knowing that it helped him keep the rhythm. It was hard, though, when he wanted to hold his breath and focus, to let everything but the ache in his straining arm muscles fade away. Seven. Eight. Nine.

"C'mon, you can go for fifteen," James said. "Back straight, shoulders down, Esteban. You've got this."

James's constant commentary track was half encouragement and half teasing. Steve had accepted it as a fact when he'd agreed to this. It didn't help him with the five extra reps, which set a raging fire to his biceps. The burn didn't fade even when he set the barbell down and wiped his forehead.

"What... the hell happened to three times ten?" He accepted the water bottle from James. Sadistic son of a bitch; he liked pushing Steve a little too much.

"You were ready for it, man," James said with a shrug. There was sincere pride in his grin, and Steve couldn't help but thaw a bit. "You okay? Wanna skip the chin-ups?"

The burn was already dissolving into sparks of euphoria as the endorphins kicked in. James hadn't been bullshitting him. The workout did push unpleasant thoughts away, leaving behind a bright, clean peace. "No way."

James laughed and slapped him on the back. "Right answer. Give your lats fifteen reps, too?"

"Twelve, maybe."

"Deal." James added more weights to the already groaning barbell for his military presses.

It wasn't the first time he'd chosen those for his last exercises, knowing Steve would be finished before him and paying attention. They showed off his strengths the best, every flexing and trembling muscle of his upper arms and chest, and James was nothing if not a show-off.

Steve did three times twelve chin-ups, fast and hard, and let himself fall down on his aching feet, his gaze locking with James's. "Looking good, Mr. Vega."

James had piled on too much weight to form any words during the reps. The best he could manage was a pleased grunt.

”Nice, keep going.” Steve sauntered around him to fetch his towel. ”How about some squats next to show off the rest of your assets?”

James coughed out a laugh. ”Dream on, flyboy.”

”What? You'll show off your pecs but not your ass? I can do anything to it except show it some aesthetic appreciation?”

The barbell bounced hard from the bench. James didn't set it down so much as let it plummet. ” _¡Cabrón!_ ” He was still gasping with laughter and fluster. ”What the hell-- you tryin' to throw me off, Esteban?”

”Aw, I didn't know you were shy.” Steve laughed along with James; it was impossible not to. ”Relax. There's no one else around.”

James did some more huffing, for show, and after a sip of water, went back to his presses.

Steve started his stretches while he enjoyed the view, mumbling encouragement every once in a while. There might have been a note of teasing to it, but James lapped it up anyway, throwing him a satisfied smile between reps. It may have been a game they played, but it wasn't a game of seeing who'd crack first; James made no secret of how he couldn't get enough of the attention and the praise. Steve liked that James had never tried to hide it. He was surprisingly open about what he liked. Vocal about it, even.

He made things all too easy, sometimes. They'd fallen back to some of their old habits without any conversation necessary – the sex, mainly. It was less frequent and less hurried now, without the desperation of war pushing them along. To be honest, Steve had expected James to pull away from him some, but every time he gave him space, James claimed it back again. He wasn't sure what to make of it.

Steve was pretty sure James didn't want a boyfriend, especially when he had the friend part already. This way, Steve's baggage and his past were not his problem to deal with. This way, they held each other up but took their own steps forward, like any wounded soldiers preferred it.

”Next time we're planet-side, remind me to get another bench,” James said in between gulps of water. ”There'd be room for wall bars over there, too, if we cleared out those boxes.”

Steve leaned over him to get the water bottle. James dodged and made him reach for it again. ”Who said you could turn my shuttle bay into a gym?”

That earned him a chuckle, as he'd thought. ” _Your_ shuttle bay?”

”Damn straight.” Steve caught the bottle after a quick feint. ”I just let you hang around for the show.”

James's smile had a note of apprehension when their eyes met over his shoulder. ”I give good show.”

”That you do,” Steve assured him, and when it didn't seem to do the trick, he kissed the corner of James's mouth, tasting salt on the scarred lip.

He expected James to tilt his head into the kiss, to make it more than a suggestion, but he turned away instead with a low chuckle. ”Hey, Cotorra. _Ven aquí_ ; no need to sneak around.”

Steve straightened his back and did his best not to look guilty. He was too old for that kind of fidgeting, and Traynor didn't look like she needed any more reasons to feel awkward. She let the elevator doors hiss closed and stepped closer to them.

”I didn't want to interrupt,” she said. ”But if you've put down the barbells for now...”

James touched the towel to his face and let it fall back down on the bench. ”Yeah. What's up? Bryson ready to head home?”

”No, not yet. She's still cooped up with Liara.” Traynor seemed to shrug off her awkwardness, drawing herself up. ”Actually, Cortez, I wanted to ask if you'd do me a favor.”

Steve blinked. ”Sure. What kind of favor?”

The absence of a smile made Traynor look all but grave. ”Take a quick procurement trip to Earth, and don't notice me slipping into the shuttle by mistake.”

James chuckled. ”What are you up to, Cotorra? Sneakin' in some goodies?”

”You're in a hurry, I take it,” Steve observed.

”Yes.” Traynor's expression finally softened into a little smile. ”Please feel free to take a shower before we go, though.”

 

*

The new Alliance base in London was coming along nicely. What really made Samantha's heart jump with hope was the sprawl around it. Residential buildings were coming up like mushrooms, and all around the bombed-out parks, garden rows had been drawn, giving the city the feel of a new settlement. She was a colony kid. Her childhood home didn't look much different from this.

Like Samantha had predicted, the landing went without a hitch. The Normandy's name had power, and the shuttle had made the trip several times before. The questions would start once she was inside the base, but as long as she could get a few choice ones of her own answered, she would be satisfied.

”You sure you don't want me to come along?” Cortez asked once he'd brought the shuttle down, light as a leaf.

”No, it'll be fine.” _I need to do this on my own_ , she thought, but held it tightly to herself. ”You're my exit plan, so just lay low. I won't take long.”

Cortez nodded, and bless him, didn't look doubtful at all.

”Thanks, though,” Samantha added, summoning up a smile for him, and leapt out of the shuttle.

Parts of the complex were still in construction, which meant a wandering comm specialist could get around without any problems, if she didn't get lost in the endless corridors. Samantha asked around and finally found the person she was looking for in the small, twilit waiting lounge outside the officers' mess hall.

Sergeant Gadhavi was in the middle of a call. The omni-lights danced over her steady features. Under other circumstances, Samantha might have described Gadhavi's face as reliable: the line of her jaw was steadfast, her eyes serious and guileless. She was in her late forties, and looked like she would spend the next few decades looking that age, as it suited her. Samantha might have found her an easy authority figure to trust, had she not come looking for her fuming with indignation.

She stopped a few steps away, clasping her clammy hands behind her back, and waited for Gadhavi to finish her call.

”Yes, what is it, Specialist?” Gadhavi had shown no sign that she'd noticed Samantha's arrival, but the second her call ended, she turned to her.

Samantha took a deep breath and willed her lips not to twitch. ”I'm the communications specialist on the SSV Normandy, ma'am. One of my crewmates has been detained, and I was told... I was told you were the one who authorized the arrest.”

Gadhavi's expression did not change. ”That's right. I'm the head of that initiative.”

Samantha had been hoping for a more visible reaction. She had to wet her lips before soldiering on. ”Ma'am, the CO of the Normandy has left on a mission off-world, and given the present range of our communications, she cannot be reliably reached. Respectfully, ma'am, I'm sure that had you waited for her return, she would've appreciated a chance to sort through this matter with you before any arrests were made.”

Gadhavi smiled in a distant way. ”I understand that's how you tend to do things on the Normandy.” She let out a sigh through her nose. If she was exasperated, that was the only sign of it. ”That explains why I'm talking to a comm specialist who presumes to speak for her commanding officer. No, I understand where you're coming from. I'm sure from your point of view I'm making the situation needlessly complicated.”

”Ma'am,” Samantha started, and didn't know how to go on. She realized too late that her halting protest had sounded like an affirmation, and heat prickled her face.

”I'm in fact trying to keep the situation as contained and undramatic as possible.” Gadhavi had stepped closer and now softened her tone, as if indulging Samantha by letting her in on a secret. ”You monitor the comms, you've seen what it's like. Mass protests, beatings, lynchings, even. This is why the Alliance has to step in. I'm sure LC Williams appreciates keeping foreign interests and unwanted media attention out of the loop.”

Gadhavi was right about her commanding officer, Samantha knew it just from having read her service records. The Williams name had taken enough mud-slinging. She felt a cold hand of contempt squeeze her throat, contempt for this sensible, trustworthy woman who had done her homework.

”I don't presume to speak for my CO, ma'am, but I doubt she would approve of the timing of this action,” Samantha managed. ”The Normandy is operating understaffed, and quite frankly, if there are further arrests made–”

Gadhavi didn't sigh a second time, but she looked straight at Samantha for a few seconds, until Samantha haltingly abandoned her sentence.

”Cut to the chase, Specialist. You came to me to plead your crewmate's innocence.”

”I came to you, ma'am, to inquire as to the nature of the charge,” Samantha insisted. Her voice had risen and she couldn't help it. Gadhavi put her on the defensive, which was probably deliberate.

Gadhavi was perfectly calm, but Samantha thought she caught a hint of something sharp in her gaze. ”Don't play dim. You know exactly what the charge is. And regardless of your personal opinions on Engineer Daniels or her work performance, that charge will stick.”

Samantha swallowed. ”Daniels has been cleared of all previous charges by Commander Shepard herself.”

Gadhavi shifted her weight, and stood straight again. She was a short woman, but had the bearing of someone as big as a krogan. ”She was drafted from prison for the war effort by a Council Spectre. Now that the war is over, and such special circumstances no longer apply--”

”She's not a Cerberus agent!” Samantha couldn't contain herself anymore. The thought of Gabby, thrown in a cell by her own people for the _second time_ , after all she had done, all she had lost... The unfairness of it was intolerable.

Predictably, Gadhavi's only sign of frustration was a tight frown. ”She willingly joined a terrorist organization responsible for numerous war crimes, and she wasn't the only one to do so. These are the facts, Specialist. She will receive a fair trial, and she _will_ be held accountable.” Gadhavi paused, an idea seeming to occur to her. ”Do you think this is a witch hunt? I have nothing personal against your crewmate. I will not be the one to judge her fate.”

”But you lead the investigation.” Samantha had abandoned all pretense of etiquette. She felt hollow in the places her anger couldn't touch.

Gadhavi almost shrugged. Most of her gestures seemed like nods towards genuine expressions. Perhaps she found social occasions intimidating, and had learnt how to appear relaxed, Samantha mused, reading her body language despite herself.

”No one else thought to do it at the time. I saw a gap and I filled it. You know what I mean, don't you? I know who you are. I've read your report about the Crucible transmission. Inspired work. The Alliance needs initiative like yours.”

She sounded like she meant what she said, and that felt like a blow to the gut. Samantha had never in her life had her work described as 'inspired' by a superior officer.

”Thank you, ma'am. I'll send on Lieutenant Commander Williams's word once she returns,” she said stiffly, and made a salute like a stab through the air before turning to leave.

”Williams can't simply wave these charges away, Specialist Traynor,” Gadhavi called after her, loud enough that her voice turned a few disinterested heads in the lounge. ”The war is over. We must all get used to service without its extreme measures.”

_Keep telling yourself that when the Leviathans cripple your communications and turn your own people against you_ , Samantha thought, viciously, and didn't turn around.

Cortez was waiting for her by the shuttle. He was either pretending to fix something under its hood or trying to find a way to improve on perfection.

”You done?” was all he asked.

Samantha nodded, feeling more in control of her foolish temper now that she was in familiar company, and climbed in.

She waited until the base was well behind them before turning to Cortez again. He was busy punching in the coordinates of the second destination she had specified.

”We're going to look like we've picked up some cargo from the base, touching down for less than an hour like that,” Cortez mumbled, half to himself.

”I know. That's the official explanation why we're here, right?”

”Yeah. Hold on, I'm taking us the long way around to shake off any interested parties.”

The shuttle did a graceful swerve away from the metropolitan area, and soon they were flying over water instead of building sites, low and steady.

”Why are you doing this?” Samantha asked softly. ”You don't owe me a thing for chasing down your location after the war, just so you know. I did that for myself. I told you, didn't I?”

Cortez glanced at her, and went right back to his controls, increasing the speed. ”You asked for help, Traynor. I decided to give it. I did that for myself, too.”

Samantha found herself smiling, the awful feeling of helplessness melting away. Cortez could be a frustrating man, so level-headed it made her feel like a flailing spectacle, but she thought she might like his flavour of frustrating. ”Why break the regs for me?”

Cortez took a few moments to think about the answer. ”I think you're the kind of person who breaks the regs for the right reasons.”

”You sound pretty confident about that.”

”Some people have said I'm a good judge of character.”

Samantha laughed. ”How am I supposed to disagree with you when you put it like that?”

Cortez smiled at her. His steady gaze softened when he did so, his eyes narrowing with fondness. ”You shouldn't, then. The new temporary holding cells next, yes? Who are we busting out of prison?”

”Gabby,” she said, and leaned back, strength flowing back into her limbs. ”But we're going to see if we can talk to her first.”

Samantha glanced at her omni-tool arm, and suppressed a pang of guilt. The Alliance needed her, but Gabby needed her, too. She remembered something her mother had used to say. _Start from what you can do. Work your way up to the impossible._

 

*

Vega lifted the M-76 Revenant, weighing it in his hand. ”Still packs a helluva kick, but it's worth it at close range.”

Ash's face was striped with interference on the screen, but her appreciation was still shining through. ”How close?”

”About the same range as before I put the stability damper in. Just be ready for that kick when you fire, and she'll make some sweet music for you.”

”Sounds good. I can't wait to give her a spin.” She looked all business, in heavy armor and hair pulled back into a bun, or at least the kind of business Vega was used to seeing her take care of. He had no idea how the Council would take her appearance. Maybe they were expecting her to pretend like there was no call for weapons, now that the Reapers had bitten the dust.

”You all set?” He was careful not to say anything about the real reason she was out there, not on the line. They weren't secure anymore, any of them.

”Yeah. Shit. I don't know, James. I guess I'll find out.” She shuddered, like she was literally trying to shake off any doubts. ”I hate politics. Have I mentioned that? What the hell am I doing here?”

Vega rubbed at his neck. ”Aww, you need to kick back more than your rifle does, Ash. Go find a bar. Get yourself a drink. Get yourself laid.”

She caught his gaze and held it until he knew he'd fucked up, gone too far. Well, shit, he didn't know where the limits were sometimes. She had only been his CO for a short while. Damn Cortez, getting him all worked up and then flying off with Traynor. No wonder he had sex on his mind.

He tried not to think about Cortez's hands, which didn't help at all, only made him feel them on his skin. He was so easy for Esteban sometimes, it was ridiculous.

”Sorry, LC,” he mumbled.

Ash relented, and gave a great big grin. ”No, you're right, James. I could do with a nice hunk reminding me what a gorgeous badass I am. But I'm not heading to the Citadel, remember? No swanky nightclubs.”

”Oh yeah. Well, you'll find a way to kick ass. Show 'em what the Alliance is made of.”

The line almost failed, drowning Ash's answer in an ear-splitting squeal.

”Ash, you're breaking up.” Vega gave the side of the screen a good whack, just to feel better.

Ash's face was almost unrecognizable now, but at least he could hear her. ”...said I will. James... You think Shepard would've brought this to the Council first?”

Shepard's name still weighed a ton. James listened to his own heart beating uncomfortably loud and tried to think of an answer for Ash. He _knew_ what it was. Shepard would have been out there, dropping bombs in every deep ocean corner she could find. Shepard would have blown that whole damn planetoid with the mindfuck hatchery on it to smithereens, and blamed the bad comm lines for not asking for permission.

Was it the same, though? They weren't fighting the Reapers anymore. There was no openly declared war, no wide-scale destruction. He wasn't built for in-betweens like this. Part of him almost wished the Leviathans would just give up the pretense and destroy a base or something. Anything.

”Maybe she would've been just as confused as we are,” Vega said, but the line was dead, and Ash couldn't hear him.


	6. Chapter 6

The detour Cortez had chosen was so wide that Samantha re-checked the coordinates one more time when Cortez's attention was elsewhere. She had called in a few favors to trace Gabby down. Sergeant Gadhavi could still use better comm line security measures, she mused. It must have been a trick and a half to find temporary facilities for housing political criminals. Intact infrastructure drew attention and the Alliance's first priority was to steer any interest away from volatile prisoners. It became a rueful kind of hope. Samantha had to agree with Gadhavi yet again: Gabby was safer away from the war-stirred and embittered masses. But safety was little more than a baseline.

They landed in front of an old police station, its original purpose long since abandoned by the looks of it. The Alliance had no one posted outside and they received no hails to welcome them, but Samantha was certain their arrival had been noticed. As soon as they emerged from the shuttle they got company.

Cortez looked a little uncomfortable, so Samantha made sure the officer in charge threw all his questions in her direction. She relaxed her stance and called forth her best approximation of the stark calm that Gadhavi had dazzled her with. This was much less intimidating; the officer was young and obviously bored on the detail, which gave her a foot in the door.

He shook his head at her carefully worded excuses, however. "I understand you're on a Council assignment, ma'am, but unless you've got the documentation I can't let you in. I'm not even supposed to let you land."

_But we're the most exciting thing he's seen all week_ , Samantha guessed. She tasted the man's vowels in her mind, rolled them over and tagged them with mental markers.

"Look, we've come all this way. You know data delivery's unreliable these days. When was the last time you could get a line home from way out here?"

The officer hesitated, which confirmed Samantha's suspicions about his accent, faint though it was. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I can't let you in without proper authorization."

Samantha fixed her gaze at slightly below the man's eyes and lifted her chin. "It's been that long, huh? You've a bit of a New Jericho accent there. That's a limited comm-range colony. Got family there, have you?"

The officer's posture immediately became more alert. "What does... I mean, yes, ma'am, but I'm afraid I have to ask you to leave."

Samantha had located the closest comm buoy while he had been talking. Two bounces. Definitely doable, given the right priority clearance. "Tell you what. I work very closely with someone who has both Alliance- and Council-sanctioned priority bandwidth access. It involves quite a lot of comm traffic. Occasionally, messages are sent or received that never make it to official reports. But as a comm specialist, sifting them in or out is my call."

She showed him the two-buoy route on her omni-tool screen. It was nothing but a graphic representation of a possible comm line, but she figured visuals could only add credence to her words.

The officer hesitated, biting his lip. "I--I really can't..."

"One prisoner in the interview room, five minutes. It's just a shortcut through the formalities." Samantha tapped the icon representing the Enoch system at the end of the comm line, letting the familiar planets swirl past the screen. "I'm doing you a favor here. All you have to do is accept."

"Just five minutes, then," the officer mumbled, shame-faced but eager.

"Take as long as you need," Samantha chirped and opened the line to his omni-tool. "I'm sure you've got lots to talk about."

While they waited in the dusty hall for the officer to fetch Gabby out of her cell, Cortez leaned in. "You scared me a bit back there.”

Samantha couldn't help herself; she beamed like she'd found a light shining just for her. "Really?"

"I'd feel sorry for the kid, but he's got a bounce in his step. You weren't bullshitting, were you?"

The officer gestured for them to head into the interview room and Samantha sprang up.

"A little,” she admitted to Cortez in a low tone. ”It's going to take about ten minutes to establish a connection, even with first priority bandwidth access. That'll buy us some time."

"I bet he won't complain, though," Cortez said with a wistful note.

Samantha saw a memory of things long lost in his eyes: maybe he was thinking about someone he would've been that eager to call, once.

The interview cell was rudimentary -- little more than three stone walls and a glowing electrofield separating Gabby from them. There wasn't even anywhere to sit, for Gabby or for them. Samantha found herself wishing for ancient cells with iron bars. At least then they could've grasped hands.

Upon closer inspection, Gabby's hands were still cuffed behind her back. The officer hadn't freed them. True, Gabby's hands were sophisticated tech tools -- but the precautions implied that she wasn't just under suspicion, she was a _threat_. Her shoulders were slumped and she kept herself painfully still, like she considered herself dangerous, too.

The officer practically skipped into his little office down the corridor to make his call and left the three of them alone.

"Hi," Samantha said quietly, unable to find anything else to break the ice with, and gave a little wave.

"I'll give you a minute, keep an eye on that officer," Cortez said, indicating the corridor outside. The brief squeeze on Samantha's shoulder radiated reassurance.

Samantha hoped her smile adequately communicated how grateful she was. He had been an absolute darling throughout this caper.

"I've set up a program to alert LC Williams the second she's next within range," Samantha burst out, once she was alone with Gabby. "She'll know the situation the moment she checks her omni-tool, so... Don't worry, Gabby. All right? We'll get you out of here."

Gabby's hair fell over her face when she inclined her head away from Samantha. "Okay," she mumbled.

Samantha leaned so close the electric barrier between them hummed in her ears. Gabby didn't look maltreated; she was clean, her uniform was in good shape and there was color on her face. In some sense, however, deeper than skin and bones, she looked beaten.

"We're not going to give up on you," Samantha told her firmly.

Gabby looked up, but it was only so her hair would fall back from her eyes. "I'm starting to think I might be in the right place," she said, slowly and carefully, like a speech she had had a long time to prepare.

"Wh-- why would you say that?" If Samantha hadn't liked the barrier separating them before, now she positively loathed it. No one had ever looked more like they needed a hug than Gabby.

"I joined Gerberus, for one," Gabby pointed out with as much emotion as if they were discussing vid channel subscriptions. "No one forced me to. I chose to join."

"So what if you did?" Samantha tried to find an eloquent gesture, but her arms simply flailed about. "So did Commander Shepard! Gabby! You're a bloody war hero, and I won't let you talk about yourself like that!"

At least she got some kind of reaction out of Gabby: her shoulders rose in defiance. "Some war hero. If the word went out that I'm here there'd be a lynch mob outside that door."

"But there isn't. _I'm_ here, aren't I?" Samantha put her hands on her hips, to keep them still. "And Cortez is here. I'll drag the whole damn Normandy crew here if that's what it takes!"

Gabby was quiet for a long moment. Samantha could only hope that she was re-evaluating. 

When Gabby spoke up at last, she sounded like she was thinking aloud. "Adams better have kept an eye on the new dispersal filters."

Samantha didn't know which one of them she was trying to distract more with the shop talk, but she couldn't give Gabby a break. "He didn't mention them. But he was worried about you. So was everyone else in the crew I talked to. We all miss you. We want you back. The Normandy included. No one makes her purr like you do and you know it."

This time, Samantha was certain that Gabby's silence was a sign of arduous digestion of what she had been told. The line of her shoulders remained sharp and rigid. "It felt somehow... good, being arrested. Terrible, but... good as well. I suppose I had been waiting... for that shoe to drop."

Every desolate word stabbed into Samantha. "Don't do this," she pleaded, her calm in shambles at her feet. "Don't give in. Please. There are other ways to find closure. This is just a silver rabbit, Gabby; don't go chasing it."

Gabby's mouth formed a sliver of a smile. There was warmth in it, if not much elation. "I always lose the rabbits, Sam. That's my problem." The smile wavered and fell away. "I'd just like to hold on to something, for once."

"Then hold on to something _good_ ," Samantha urged her.

Her eyes strayed to the blasted electrofield. It was a recent addition to the room, which meant that the panels were visible against the old stone wall. Her omni-tool wasn't exactly decked out for impromptu electronic rewiring but she could give it a try, couldn't she?

Cortez peeked into the room, making her jump.

"Is he done with the call?"

"He's chatting away; don't worry. What are you doing?"

"Disabling this field for a minute. Would you give me a hand, please?"

Cortez hesitated for only a moment before joining her, his omni-tool flaring to the task. "When you bust into a prison, you don't do it half-assed, do you," he murmured.

It wasn't a complaint. If anything, he sounded pleased. Samantha hadn't taken him for someone who revelled in rebellious acts but he had kept some bad company throughout this war.

_Breaks the regs for the right reasons_ , Samantha thought. _I'll try to live up to it._

The moment the electric wall came down and left the room in twilight she stepped close to the bewildered Gabby. Samantha didn't quite know what she was doing. She only knew that she needed there to be nothing between them that Gabby could hide behind. Her palm cupped a tense and stiff shoulder.

"You're bloody mad, Sam," Gabby whispered, but didn't withdraw.

"And you're worth so much more than this," Samantha whispered back.

Gabby made a noise like a startled puppy but leaned into her, nudging her forehead against hers. Samantha closed her into a fierce hug, the kind that went straight to the bones. She traced the shape of Gabby's shoulder blade through her jacket. Gabby's hands were tied but Samantha got the sense that she clung to her all the same.

"I'll get you out of here," she repeated her promise.

"Okay," Gabby said again, but Samantha liked this _okay_ immensely better.

 

*

 

The docking of the shuttle seemed to crawl along just to get on Vega's nerves. He had gnawed his upper lip ragged and bleeding by the time Traynor climbed out of the shuttle, looking triumphant. Whatever she had talked Cortez into getting for her, she'd claimed it.

"Hello, James," she greeted him, all breezy. "Don't tell me you've been wrangling those weights since we left."

It was a jokey stab in the dark but it almost hit home. Vega shifted uncomfortably and saw that Traynor noticed it, her smile dropping. "I've been waiting for you to come back, yeah. I'm under orders to take you to Admiral Hackett's dreadnought. An hour ago."

Traynor glanced over her shoulder at Cortez who was getting out of the shuttle, too.

"Not Esteban. You." Vega pointed at Traynor, then towards the elevator. "We best get a move on. You good?"

To her credit, Traynor gathered herself quickly, her eyes taking on an unreadable glaze. Her hand clasped her wrist, where her omni-tool so often flared from. "Y-yes. Yes, of course."

"What's going on?" Cortez hovered behind Traynor like he was covering her.

Vega was glad he could give them his honest answer. "Damn if I know. Ash's not here, but... Look, if it's gonna be a disciplinary thing, I'll carry some weight for you. I let you go. It's on me, too."

"I hope it doesn't come to that," Traynor said, grave-faced, and followed him to the elevator.

Cortez walked beside her, not asking, not arguing. He liked to do a full diagnostic after taking his bird out, but this time he abandoned it without a word.

Vega would have lied if he'd claimed he wasn't happy Cortez was coming with.

The dreadnought had extended a ramp straight to the Normandy's main door and they were able to march right onboard. Vega's hair stood on end at the scan they walked through; at this level of Alliance command, it was probably thorough enough to tell what he'd eaten that morning.

"LT Vega from the Normandy, bringing Specialist Traynor in for a personal hearing," he told the admiral's assistant.

To his surprise, he and Cortez weren't told to wait outside. They were all ushered into the fleet admiral's spacious office. As soon as they were inside, they saw that it wasn't going to be a private meeting with Hackett. Several chairs had been brought in, and on them sat a few high-ranking Alliance officers Vega only recognized from their stripes. The three of them weren't the only ones brought in from the Normandy, either. Dr. Chakwas was talking to Liara in low tones. Garrus stood behind their chairs, arms folded over his chest. Tali had the central stage, directly opposite Hackett, and Vega got the impression that they'd interrupted her. Her omni-tool showed a few busy open screens.

"Specialist Traynor, good," the admiral greeted their arrival. "Take a seat. All of you. Admiral Tali'Zorah has been updating us on new quarian intelligence. Admiral, please continue."

Traynor sunk down onto the chair Chakwas pointed her to, looking as perplexed as Vega was feeling. He hung back with Cortez, waiting to be dismissed.

Tali considered for a moment and then brought up a new screen holding some kind of a structural layout.

"To recap, I've been able to safely reconnect with some quarian intelligence agents and together with Dr. T'Soni we've been able to put together a picture that might be of interest." With a graceful movement of her fingers, Tali expanded the layout to a three-dimensional model that filled the room with a blue glow. "This is the research ship Maquia, long thought lost to the fleet. Or rather what is left of her. According to this new intelligence Maquia crashed on the uninhabited planet Falthis-8 three years ago. But my agents report movement as well as power expenditures in its hulk. More importantly, I was able to isolate a signal originating from its control room."

Her quick fingers flickered over her omni-tool and an eerie, low sound hushed all speculations in the room. Vega felt his brain grinding softly to a halt, everything in his mind standing at attention, ready for orders. It was only a recording but... He'd heard that hum before. It had frozen his hands, kept him from firing.

"A Leviathan fragment," Traynor whispered. Her throat worked. She seemed transfixed, staring at Tali.

Tali nodded like she had been expecting her reaction. "A very strong signal."

"By our estimations – based on your research, Traynor – the fragment is eleven and a half times more powerful than the ones planted in the relay repair stations," Liara said, quietly.

"That power is definitely a point of interest." Hackett pursed his lips. "Thank you, Doctor. Admiral. The Alliance appreciates your willingness to share this information before consulting your own governments, no matter how practical the reasons for your trust.”

He meant that Tali had to play with the hand she'd been dealt here, Vega figured. Compromised comm lines didn't make for easy joint operations. He thought of Ash, alone with the politicians and their agendas, unable to even keep the homebase updated on her situation. No wonder she'd shown some rare nerves when she'd called.

Admiral Hackett stood straighter to signal that he was addressing the whole room. ”By now it's clear the Leviathans seek to deliberately sabotage our joint work on repairing the relays. Their motivations remain unknown, and we can't afford to be optimistic. We're gathering what defenses we can with extreme caution. The illusion of truce must hold as long as possible. Regardless of what the Council ends up deciding the Alliance will not declare open war. We're... in no shape for it, I'm afraid."

Garrus mumbled his grim agreement. Tali shifted closer to him.

The blunt admission shook Vega, but he quickly lowered his gaze. Hackett had always seemed unwavering to him, a cornerstone the whole Alliance could lean on. To hear him say that open war was impossible was a terrifying declaration of weakness.

"I agree with your assessment, Admiral." Liara's tone was even. Her eyes reminded Vega of Traynor when he'd told her to follow him. "The Leviathans' advantage is considerable. What could the creator race of the Reapers be capable of? For all their millennia of existence, they've left few clues of themselves in the galaxy. We can only hazard a few guesses based on recent experiences. "

"Then let us make educated guesses," Dr. Chakwas suddenly piped up. She looked from Liara to Tali. "Admiral, the way I see it, we are most desperately in need of two kinds of defenses: electronic shielding of our ships' systems, and neural blockers to neutralize the effects of the mind control witnessed in the vicinity of the fragments. We need to focus our studies on those two points."

"Go on, Dr. Chakwas," Hackett urged.

Chakwas got up on her feet to speak to them all. She showed no sign of nervousness. "I'm no engineer, Admiral, and there isn't much I can do to keep our ships safe, but I've had the privilege to serve on an extraordinary ship facing extraordinary challenges. I've done some extensive research on the effects of mind control. I believe the influence of these fragments can be overcome."

"That's a remarkable claim," Tali said. Vega didn't know if her voice was hushed by admiration or doubt.

Chakwas sank back down on her seat. "I admit my research is woefully incomplete. More observation is needed, more study. If I could scan an intact fragment--"

"Within its effective range? Risky." Garrus glanced about when he realized he'd drawn everyone's attention. "Take a renegade turian's word for it. I know a little something about taking risks."

"Garrus, I'm afraid you've only heard the arrow's head of it." Chakwas turned to look at him. "What I really need is a scan of a brain undergoing the controlling process. For viable results I would also need to compare it to a brain already exposed to the fragment's influence before. Simultaneously, if possible."

"So you need to bring me and scan me," Vega spoke up. He focused on the stunned Chakwas, ignoring the reactions of everyone else in the room. "That's what you're saying, right? It's either me or As-- LC Williams you need, and she's on an assignment, so that settles it."

He heard Cortez draw a deep breath and hold it. It could have been a disapproving sort of sigh. Vega didn't turn around to look at him to confirm. He stared at the glowing outline of the Maquia. It wouldn't be the first derelict ship full of creepy alien artifacts that he had seen firsthand.

Admiral Hackett clasped hands behind his back. "Are you volunteering for the information gathering team, Lieutenant Vega?"

It was reassuring to meet his gray eyes across the room. For the first time in a long while Vega knew exactly what his duty was. "Yes, sir."

"If the ship's systems are switched on, as they may be, you'll need someone with expansive knowledge of them to guide you. I'm prepared to take point in this exploration." Tali placed her heels firmly together, her version of standing at attention. "You are of course free to assemble your own team, Admiral Hackett. But I'd prefer familiar faces."

One of the Alliance officers, a middle-aged guy with a long scar down his face, nodded eagerly. ”Sir, I think the potential gains of the mission outweigh the dangers."

"And if you scan the biological markers, you could analyze the transmission right at one of its buoy points," Traynor spoke up, apparently too eager to remember that she had been brought in dreading a disciplinary hearing. "A fragment of such-- such power and potency could be linked to several others. We could stand to learn a great deal of their network of information gathering and influence."

Admiral Hackett gave her his full attention. She met it bravely. Vega thought he glimpsed something similar in Traynor and Chakwas, for all their differences: they were equally passionate about their jobs, and equally ready to prove it. "You can cooperate with Dr. Chakwas to work on the countermeasures we need, Specialist?"

"Yes, sir." Traynor nodded a couple of times. "If I may suggest an addition to her list of concerns –- the shielding of our information and communication should be highly prioritized as well. Like Dr. Chakwas, I've been working on such a protective measure for some time-–"

"Excellent," Admiral Hackett cut her off. "Can I count on your participation as well as expertise, Specialist Traynor?"

Traynor had to swallow first but her answer was unhesitating. "Yes, sir. I'd be honored to take part in the mission. If my... current restrictions do not prevent it, sir."

"You're dismissed from any orders keeping you from applying yourself fully to this mission, Specialist," the admiral declared and turned his eyes to Tali. "I suggest a small exploration team and regular comm checks, Admiral Tali'Zorah. It's the best protective measure we can employ."

Tali's face was hard to read through her mask but it seemed to Vega she smiled at that. "I agree. I must also ask that all information found is to be freely shared between the Alliance and the Fleet, along with our mutual allies. Taking into account proper protective measures, of course."

Admiral Hackett nodded thoughtfully. "We can discuss it at length when we have more to go on, and when the Council's word has reached us. Assemble your team, Admiral. My nav experts will find you a quiet route in the meanwhile.”

Tali gave a sharp nod, and the meeting came to a close, everyone breaking into smaller groups to talk in hushed voices.

On their way to the ramp to the Normandy Vega overheard Traynor talking to Cortez in frantic whispers.

”So much for a disciplinary hearing!”

”I get the feeling the admiral's got his eyes on you all the same,” Cortez said. He rubbed at the side of his chin, thoughtfully. Vega recognized that as one of his tells. Lost him the round every time.

He made himself not to think about the rough-soft feel of that beard. He had to focus. Time for all that later.

Traynor's eyes widened. ”You make it sound a bit ominous.”

”Well.” Cortez gave a small shrug. ”I'd rather face a disciplinary hearing than a mission like that. Be careful. Both of you.”

Vega took the pat on his shoulder like a punch, biting back a grin. He should've known Cortez had noticed him listening in. ”No worries, Esteban. All I gotta do's stand there and let the doc do her thing. _Es pan comido._ ”

”You have some talent for finding trouble, Mr. Vega. Play it safe this time.”

”People keep tellin' me that,” Vega said, but he could feel his grin dropping. 

Damn it, Cortez's teasing had some real concern behind it, and it got to him. _Cortez_ got to him, more than he had before the end of the war. The shift was uncomfortable, cutting right to where Vega was vulnerable, and he could feel his hackles rising. It wasn't a feeling he wanted to stick to him. If he was getting compromised by their arrangement it was nobody's fault but his. No point blaming Esteban for any of it.

He'd just have to watch himself. Keep sharp. This crew deserved his best.

”If you're that worried, Cortez, you can volunteer to join us. I'm sure Sparks wouldn't mind.”

Cortez laughed, that low, rolling chuckle of his. ”Oh no. You're on your own on this one.”

 

*

In the end, Steve fell back on loyalty, every time. It wasn't in him to leave his team on their own.

Falthis-8 had an enormous moon that reflected fiery light upon the wrecked quarian ship's side, giving the impression that embers glowed within it. The ship's design was as irregular as could be expected of a quarian vessel, painstakingly constructed of salvage and made spaceworthy. Maybe that was why even half sunk into the white sand and forgotten for years it looked fully capable of lifting off any time, only waiting patiently for someone to switch on its systems. As he grabbed a cable and lowered himself down into the dark and dormant ship through the hole they'd cut, Steve found himself hoping Tali's source had been mistaken.

The first chamber, Tali had explained, was one of several laboratories onboard. When Steve's boots touched the floor, they crunched into pulled wires. The fiery moonlight didn't reach inside the ship; in the harsh light of his armor Steve could make out dozens of workstations lying under white dust. If Tali's people had detected power expenditures they hadn't come from here. The desert that covered Falthis-8 had crept in, little by little. The air was thick with fine sand, making him grateful for the helmet. Whatever mineral the sand consisted of it wasn't anything he wanted in his lungs.

The comm line was full of muttered chatter as the soldiers poked around. The few Alliance troops Admiral Hackett had been able to spare were young and green, pulled into the last line of Earth's defence straight out of basic training. Having made it through the war they were cocky yet unsure of themselves – a combination that could spell trouble if not kept firmly in check. Seeing them fumbling into their armor had been the final straw that had made Steve volunteer at the last minute. He hadn't been able to imagine leaving one of them to hold the last line to the transport. They needed someone with combat experience to secure the exit, so against all instinct in him, here he was.

Dr. Chakwas and Traynor had had their heads together ever since departure for Falthis-8. While they compared notes and synced omni-tools, Tali paced the dusty floor, sweeping her lights over every surface. She was nervous, Steve could tell. He'd noticed she had taken command of this exploration party like it was the least she could do. Steve didn't doubt her motivations, but he hoped Vakarian or someone else could be of reassurance, whatever it was that ate at her.

For his own part he felt neither reassuring nor reassured, but this was where he was needed.

”This lab is clear. Tiers one to five, prepare to move out.” Tali's voice rasped through the comm, testing it out. ”Tier six, prepare to get started on the data storages.”

”Copy that, ma'am,” Steve told her, and nodded to her across the room. He was grateful to have a task at hand. There was no shortage of long-abandoned tech here waiting to be salvaged. Maybe some of it held a clue to the reason why the Leviathans might be interested in the ship.

There was no immediate snap to attention at Tali's orders from the rest of the troops, however, and James groaned, shaking his head. He gestured for Tali to step closer for a word, and switched to a different frequency. Steve surreptitiously adjusted his own comm and listened in.

”--If I talk to them? Look, they've probably never even seen a quarian in person before. You wanna make things easier for 'em to understand, let me act as your field commander."

Tali did not turn to look at the soldiers, but her stance relaxed a fraction. "Yes. You may be right. They already stumble over my name."

"See? That's what I mean. Your name's 'Admiral'. That's all these brats need to know." James cleared his throat and switched to general frequency. "All right, troops, gather 'round and listen up! You've been briefed but here's what you need to know: we're here to escort Dr. Chakwas and Specialist Traynor in and out of this wreck. Leave the gawkin' to the experts. I want _your_ eyes to be on your primary targets. You!"

One young soldier turned away from her friend, her hands freezing in mid-gesture before snapping to her sides. "Sir!"

"Eyes on target, soldier! There will be no chit-chat on the comm line! Your secondary objective is to keep an eye on your team. Anyone acting funny, failing to respond, or crying for their mama, you report that immediately. You're here because you know your team, and ain't no crybabies among the defenders of the Earth, am I right? So that'll be your first clue that the enemy is screwing with your head."

He had them by that point; Steve saw it in their attentive stances.

James turned from one soldier to the next. "If my comm's off, if the doc needs me, report directly to the admiral. She tells you to fall back, you fall back. LT Cortez over there's our ticket outta this place, so things go haywire, you comm him and let him know to expect us. Questions, no, good! Move out after the admiral!"

Just like that, the soldiers gathered behind Tali, backs straight and mouths shut.

Dr. Chakwas walked past Steve, eyes fixed on her omni-tool screens. Steve saw a glimpse of his own patient file being scrolled through. He swallowed with a dry throat. Chakwas's experimental scan was all that could prove he wasn't in his right mind if the artifact's influence took hold of him. And he was in the outer rim of this experiment, as safe as anyone within the shipwreck could be, unlike most of his crewmates.

As if on cue, James headed towards him.

”All right. Keep a light on for us, Esteban,” he said and clasped his shoulder with a well-armored hand.

”You got it. Stick to Dr. Chakwas.” So that she can keep her scan on you, Steve thought, but didn't say. ”Give her a nudge in the right direction if she needs it. I doubt she'll look up from that omni-tool once.”

James chuckled. ”Will do. Hey, you keep an eye out, too.”

Steve made himself nod, still stunned by the way James had effortlessly whipped the troops to shape. While he struggled to keep his voice light, there was nothing forced about James's demeanor. He was relaxed and ready for anything, even heading into yet another run-in with mind-controlling alien artifacts. He knew the risks as well as Steve did, and yet, he could focus. This needed to be done. That was all either one of them needed to know.

The hand on Steve's shoulder squeezed into a fist and bumped against his chest. He could feel the impact even through the armor. James lowered his voice, as if it mattered through the comm line.

”Listen, man, I'm glad you decided to come with us. I wouldn't wanna turn my back on just anyone in a place like this, y'know? But I know you've got my six.”

There was something unsettlingly intense about the way he said it, quiet as his voice was. The trust filled the air between them like white sand and Steve had to remind himself to breathe, to speak. ”Of course. I've got you. Go on. Don't shoot any artifacts before you're cleared.”

James groaned and turned to leave, the strange moment over. ”I'm never living that one down, am I?”

”Never,” Steve echoed, and watched him walk after Chakwas and Traynor into the dark corridor that led deeper into the ship.

When he was alone in the lab he tried to stop staring after James. His breath kept halting in his throat. Oh, _shit_. He had to pull himself together. Without even realizing it, he had allowed himself to imagine, just for a while, what it could be like to have him for real.

Distractions could be ignored by putting his hands to work, Steve knew it from long experience. He followed the wires to his first task and got to work extracting the network hard drive which seemed intact underneath the dust. It was painstaking, slow work that called for precision; he threw himself into it.

"Tier five in position," his comm let him know. He cut the last connecting wire and set the hard drive aside.

"Tier six, copy," he replied, and wished he could wipe the sweat off his face.

He was looking around for backup data storages when something clattered to the floor in the adjoining room. It was the first noise he'd heard that didn't come from the comm, and he pricked up his ears. Nothing. But he hadn't imagined it. Steve set down the tools and silently swung the shotgun over his shoulder, moving to the doorway.

There was not a sound, and he couldn't make out any movement in the darkness. After a moment's tense listening, he swept the light over the room. It found the broken table, the overthrown chairs, the covering of some kind of a maintenance duct... Which wasn't dusty.

The moment he swept the light up towards the open duct he saw movement in the corner of the room, a brief gleam of metal. He took the shot, intending to warn rather than hit anything, and set his target running. The room offered little cover, and he chanced another shot before ducking out into the lab. The shots aimed at him ate at the doorframe instead.

Steve took a breath and readied the shotgun, then peered into the room. A remarkably well-aimed shot slammed his shields halfway down, knocking him back a step, but it gave him an easy line of fire to follow. When he returned fire, the blast threw his target to the opposing wall. There was nothing like a shotgun in a close distance firefight.

The thing was disabled on the ground but still moving when Steve walked up to it. He'd shot plenty like it, but still couldn't believe what he was seeing: a geth, operational and hostile. He prepared to finish it with a shot at the artificial equivalent of the brain but the wires imitating a neural pathway simply weren't there. From behind, the geth was strangely streamlined. He'd never seen one so perfectly armored.

Steve aimed at the head anyway and shot, which put an end to the twitching. The characteristic light in its head had never been on in the first place for some reason, but the thing was still. It had never made a sound.

"Tier four set and in position," his comm piped up.

He switched it on. "This is tier six. I've got a confirmed sighting of geth at my position. One down, possibly more moving through the maintenance ducts."

Steve's boots stuck to the floor when he took a step back to look at the duct; the geth had leaked some kind of a substance all around it.

"Moving?" Tali sounded out of breath and worried. "Repeat that, tier six. Did you say _moving_?"

"Admiral!" a chorus of voices called into the comm at once. "Admiral! LT! I've got movement, two o'clock!"

The comm line became momentarily nothing but noise in his ear, and Steve's attention returned to the geth lying at his feet. It was still bleeding, for lack of a better word, mostly from the hole he'd blown into its head. The thick armor had cracked open and bent from the heat of the energy blast. But what peeked out wasn't the delicate wiring Steve had expected.

He bent down for a better look at the wet, fleshy substance oozing out of the geth-like shell. When he pulled the head open a little more it revealed the source of the bleeding: thick, severed veins travelling down from the mass that filled most of the head. The shape and texture of it was unmistakable, even after a shotgun blast. It was a brain. A pale, roughly human-sized brain.

"It's organic," he mumbled to himself in astonishment, then fumbled for the comm link. "Admiral, they're not geth, they're organic! They're alive!"

James answered him instead of Tali. "You got a confirmed sight--"

His voice cut off abruptly.

"LT Vega? Admiral?" Steve secured the maintenance duct and returned to the lab. He found himself staring into the dark corridor again, his heart thumping uncomfortably in his chest. "Admiral? Tier four, come in, this is tier six. Tier five? Come in, tier five."

The noise of the battle had ended as abruptly as it had begun. The comm line was eerily silent.


	7. Chapter 7

Although they hadn't located it yet, Samantha could pin-point the chilling moment when the fragment took over Tali.

It happened when Tali was downloading the data archives from what looked like the leading researcher's workstation. Her back straightened like she'd heard a noise, and she stood differently, her sweeping light falling down from the neat rows of synthetic bodies all around them. Garrus called her name on the comm and she didn't react. The change was subtle, but in the blink of an eye her body language had made her a stranger.

Samantha opened her mouth to warn the others, to tell Chakwas to ready her scanner, but the dozens of geth units stored in the laboratory they were in suddenly stirred to life. The quiet erupted into chaos, and the soldiers escorting them all called out movement, scrambling for defensive positions.

”Specialist! Get down!”

Samantha was pushed towards one of the metal tables, and she crouched under it, pulling Chakwas along with her as the shots started to fly. She chanced a look; some of the geth were unarmed, hurling themselves bodily at their escorting troops with ruthless disregard for their own survival. Their disadvantage was only a matter of time. Samantha had no doubt that if they got their digits on a weapon they'd use it. These geth were silent and unlit, lacking anything associated with life, synthetic or not. Many of them were also unfinished; some were missing entire limbs, or had unmended gun blast holes on their armoring like target signs. Signs of war. They had seen combat before.

There were so many of them. This was the third laboratory lined with geth in various stages of rebuilding she'd seen, and the ship was large enough for at least double that. If they were cornered here...

A geth dove down towards them, and Samantha kicked at it, hitting the lightless head. It was little more than a panicked shove, but Chakwas already had her pistol out and shot the geth point blank. It recoiled in what Samantha couldn't help but liken to a pain response, spasmed a few times and fell down at their feet.

Samantha met Chakwas's wide eyes over her shoulder. Chakwas aimed at the unmoving geth. She shot it in the neck; the geth unit jumped, and was still again.

"It's almost a-as if... it has a spine," Samantha stammered.

"A central nervous system. Yes. Ion blasts might not be as effective." Chakwas looked up, not lingering on the impossibility of the concept. She raised the pistol and tried to find a new target in the battle around them.

"James! Check on Tali, and switch from ion to electro shock!" Samantha called into her comm while Chakwas took her shot. She couldn't see James from her low position but she could hear him on the comm line ordering someone to take _the one on the left, on the left_.

Cortez's voice pierced through the shouts on the line; Samantha would recognize it anywhere, even pitched higher with confusion. "Admiral, they're alive!"

Tali couldn't hear him or answer him now, Samantha realized, and a sense of urgency rushed through her. Her omni-tool flared alive in a second, the pre-prepared screens popping up and confirming what she already knew. The air around them buzzed with Leviathan signals.

In her distraction, a geth with a large hole in its chest almost reached them with a long leap. Samantha's heart barely had time to jump into her throat before the geth was gunned down by one of the soldiers. Its metallic fingers had already been grasping at Chakwas's foot. Samantha could hear herself making an undignified noise. That had been too close.

In the breath-long calm afterwards Samantha grabbed Chakwas's arm. "Come on. We have to get to Tali! We're close to the fragment!"

Chakwas put her pistol away and steeled her jaw. "Admiral?" she called once into the comm, as if to confirm, even while she was already crawling after Samantha. Silence was her only answer.

"Cover the doc!" someone called, and energy blasts flew over them.

Luckily it wasn't a long dash to the cover of the next table. They had to crawl past one of the soldiers who'd been swarmed by the geth. His armor was grotesquely clawed open. The geth still lay on top of him, stained by his blood.

Samantha had a perfect view of Tali again. She stood on the slightly raised dais that separated the leading researcher's workstation from the rest of the laboratory. She was facing away from Samantha, her form backlit by the glow of her omni-tool. She looked focused, like she was busy downloading the data, or checking for the same Leviathan signal Samantha's own omni-tool had picked up. Only her silence and posture gave her away. Garrus had one foot on the dais, battling back the geth that swarmed to him. The fact that he was still shooting was the best evidence that he remained unaffected. He was standing dangerously close to Tali, however.

_Dataflow blockage raised. Defensive measures recognized._ Samantha's eyes flew to her omni-tool screen. Comm line interference, when the ship had no power? It made no sense until her parser programs cut deeper into the coding and recognized Tali's omni-tool signature. Tali was shutting down the comm lines.

"Garrus, would you step to the side and cover me, please," Chakwas said in a cool tone. Her right hand worked at her omni-tool, preparing it for a scan.

The fragment, Samantha thought feverishly. She had to follow the signal and locate it. Tali had to be stopped as soon as Chakwas had her scan, or they'd be in complete comm silence, to start with. Tali had more knowledge of the ship than any of them and, Samantha suspected, more than she had admitted to. She had been strangely abrupt ever since they'd arrived.

It was an uncharitable thought to have about a friend currently helpless under enemy control. Samantha felt guilt lurch in her insides and did her best to focus on the comfortingly impartial language of the Leviathan signal. It was strong enough to suggest the large fragment was not far, or perhaps a cluster of the smaller ones. No, Samantha concluded after adjusting her sensors; one fragment, and she was probably right at the edge of its range.

She, Garrus and Chakwas, and the first soldier that happened to step too close.

From her shelter under the table, Samantha looked around the laboratory, searching for the possible locations. The room was sparsely furnished but true to quarian style no space was wasted: a large fragment couldn't simply be hidden in the infrastructure.

James flung himself over the table Samantha was using as shelter, and bodily threw a geth off one of the soldiers, shooting it in the head with his rifle at close range. It exploded messily, something wet spattering over Samantha before she could duck away.

She suppressed the noise of repulsion that almost escaped her, and dared to open one eye to look. James yanked the shaken soldier up on his feet and clapped him on his back. Apparently he was okay, but something else caught Samantha's attention. Past James and the soldier, on the opposite wall, she found herself looking at a row of lockers with codepads on them. The leftmost one wasn't far from where Tali was standing.

"James," she started, then hesitated. Tali could hear every word spoken on the comm lines, too, especially if she was actively sabotaging them. Did she understand it the same, through the fog of Leviathan control, or were the words mere gibberish until she was _told_ to make sense of them? Samantha pushed the thought aside. "I... think we need to check those containers over there. Can you hit the locking mechanism on the one on the left from here?"

James spared a look at the lockers, and to Samantha's consternation, took an immediate step towards them like he intended to rip those doors open with his bare hands. _No_ , she screamed inwardly, _don't get closer to it, not a step closer--_

" _I_ can," Garrus put in, grabbing James's shoulder. "Cover Chakwas, Vega, I've got this."

He got no argument. James nodded and stepped around him, their backs touching for a brief moment. Garrus raised his sniper rifle like it weighed nothing and neatly shot the lock off. The door was flung ajar, revealing a collection of tightly packed wires and other assorted provisions.

Bless Garrus for putting two and two together so quickly, just from what he'd overheard on the comm. He made a target of himself now, however, standing alone with his back to the geth. Several of them had to be already aiming at him. Who would cover _him_?

Samantha had no gun. It hadn't even occured to her to ask for one when they'd gotten ready for the mission. But Garrus did; he was armed to the mandibles, even if he had so far stuck to his favored sniper rifle. Samantha had to bite her lip hard when she reached her decision, dulling the fear into the spike of physical pain, before she could make herself crawl out of the safety of her shelter.

"The next locker," she breathed into the comm line, and reached for the pistol clipped to its holster on the back of Garrus's armor.

She could hear movement behind her; there was no time to shoot, but she had a good hold on the weapon, and slapped it across the geth's head. It bought her enough time to grab the pistol with both hands and force her hands to take actual aim. At a close range like this she couldn't miss. Two blasts ricocheted off the armored chest, but the third hit a vulnerable spot somewhere in the neck, and a burst of dark liquid like arterial blood was her reward. Unable to unclench her fingers, she shot the geth two more times before it fell down on its knees and to the floor.

It was a machine, a VI at best, Samantha told herself, numbly. You couldn't murder a machine, leaving it to choke on its own blood on the floor.

”Look at that,” Garrus mumbled, having taken his shot, mercifully pulling her attention away from the geth.

Even through the thick protective grating the fragment shone with a dim light, like a sundown on murky waters. It wasn't as large as Samantha had expected but it still took up an entire locker. Its shape was more oval than round. It really looked like an egg, something that had been laid, Samantha thought dully.

”Good shot,” she said to Garrus, unable to give voice to her other racing thoughts.

His gaze flickered from his pistol in Samantha's hand to the geth at their feet. ”Likewise.”

”Chakwas?” Samantha inquired through the comm, anxiety rising like bile into her throat. She imagined she could hear the signal now, an angry buzzing. Why was only Tali affected? Why weren't they all, by now, close enough as they were to be staring straight at the artifact?

The doctor had her omni-tool arm slightly raised towards Tali. The screen showed a bright cross-section of a quarian head, its naked shape strange without the suit. Chakwas's tone was clipped. ”I see it, Specialist. 89 percent.”

James had kept to her side, but he was issuing orders instead of shooting now, the noise of battle dying down as the final geth in the room were defeated. ”You two, secure the exit! You, help him apply Medi-gel and sit his ass down!”

The comm channel crackled with interference. Tali was closing the net around them. No, not only that, Samantha realized; she had a new screen open on her omni-tool now, and her hand was busy giving commands. Engaging the defenses of the obviously not abandoned ship around them? Samantha didn't want to find out.

”Cortez? Come in, Cortez!” James bit back a curse in Spanish, kicking the last of the geth corpses out of his way. ”Traynor! What the hell's wrong with the comm line?”

Samantha opened her mouth, and closed it again, helpless. If Tali didn't yet know that she knew it would mean another few moments for Chakwas to finish her scan. Trying to stop Tali could lose them that precious time. The tense silence had to hold, just a few seconds longer.

”Just tell me when,” Garrus barked. His arms were steady but his mandibles trembled with impatience. ”Chakwas, tell me when. I've got a clear shot at it.”

”No!” Samantha managed, too late.

Tali turned, and with the same movement, drew the shotgun from her back and aimed it towards Garrus. There was no hesitation; Garrus had no time to react except for a gasp Samantha heard through the crackling comm line. The blast was scattered enough to hit both his shoulder and the side of his helmet, throwing him to the side. He didn't lose his hold on his rifle, but he almost fell down on one knee. His shields flickered to death, the armor scorched and fractured over his shoulder, long cracks spreading on his visor like broken ice.

There was no second shot. James had sprung into action, tackling Tali to the ground with all the finesse of wrestling a wild animal. His sheer bulk was enough to bring her down, but he had to fight to get her to lower the shotgun. She had a death grip on it, her hands locked around it.

”Ninety-nine percent,” Chakwas said, on her knees now to keep the scan on Tali while James held her down. She sounded shaken, but she didn't lift her gaze from her omni-tool. ”Eight. Nine. Now! Scan finished!”

Samantha raised the pistol in her shaking hand, but someone was faster than her, hitting the fragment through the tight grating with destructive precision. It burst like a boil, sinking the room into silence. The insistent buzzing in Samantha's ears was gone in an instant. It felt like a slow and insidious vise around her head had been loosened. She looked around, swallowing around relieved breaths.

Garrus lowered his sniper rifle from its awkward angle and found his feet. Samantha couldn't make out his face through his wrecked helmet, but at least it seemed to have held, no air escaping it. ”Out of my way, Jimmy. Out of my way!” He pushed James harshly to the side, and knelt over Tali, helping her up.

Tali's gloved hand traced the long fractures on his helmet. ”I'm sorry,” she burst out, having gained her own voice at last. ”Keelah, I'm so sorry. I could've-- My hand, I was _conscious_ but I couldn't stop my hand from--”

”Yeah,” James said grimly from her side. ”I know. Like you're trapped in your own skin. It's the worst fucking feeling.”

”Are you okay?” Tali and Garrus asked each other at the same time. Their amused little huffs were some of the sweetest sounds Samantha had ever heard. Her mask and his fractured helmet bumped softly together.

”I'm fine,” Tali offered first. ”My head aches, but I'll be fine. What about...?”

”About time I had armor to match my scars.” Garrus touched his ruined shoulder plate. ”It'll hold for now. At least as long as it takes us to get out of here.”

James gestured towards the soldiers holding position around the doorway. ”Our exit's secured. There're probably more geth lurking around the ship, but I don't see nothing movin' around here. Just say the word, Admiral.”

Chakwas had joined them on the dais to give them a look-through. ”I'm sorry, Admiral. Tali. I wasn't quick enough to react; Specialist Traynor had to alert me to start scanning you. I'm afraid that means...”

”We still need a scan of the moment of falling under the fragment's control.” Tali nodded. ”I was afraid you'd say that.”

James looked up at Chakwas. "Comparison, right? I'm ready, Cariño, but your fragment's all blown up."

"That was not the largest fragment in this place," Samantha said with a resigned air. "We've not yet seen anything close to that kind of power. But this one was big enough to influence more of us than it did. I'm glad you're okay, Tali, but... why did it pick only you? _How_ did it pick you?"

Garrus twitched uncomfortably. "Can't be just proximity. I was almost as close to it as she was. I could hear it, like loud white noise, but I didn't... it didn't affect me."

"She's in command of the mission," James said with a shrug. "She was in the lead, giving orders. Makes sense they picked her out first."

It did make sense. James had cut straight to the heart of the matter. "You're probably right," Samantha said in an undertone. "We've just never seen that aspect of the fragments before. Perhaps they can be programmed, or..."

"Or we're being watched through them," Chakwas finished for her. Her expression was grave. "Well. We're not finished here, that much is clear. I'll see to our soldiers. Let me know when you're ready to move on, Admiral."

She got up and went to push Medi-gel on the protesting troops.

James gestured towards the bodies of geth with his rifle. "About these... geth, or whatever they are. We've seen nothing but standard ground troop units so far, but what if that big fragment's got a dozen Primes or Armatures safeguarding it? Our firepower's no match for that. We need some kinda plan."

Tali shook her head. "It's unlikely. Larger units like that need frequent recharging. We haven't seen a single recharge station. Besides, Armatures are too large to bring into this ship without breaking it. It was only designed with standard geth unit parts in mind."

"I knew it!" Samantha couldn't help her outburst. She was still holding Garrus's pistol in a sweaty grip. She was spattered with what she could only think of as geth blood. Her self-control was as strained as it got. "You knew there'd be geth here, Tali! Why didn't you say anything before?"

Tali inclined her head in her direction and hesitated. Her voice was steely and steady, an admiral's voice rather than a friend's. "I didn't think it would be relevant."

"It is now," Garrus pointed out, but his sardonic tone softened immediately. "I was there when they told you the name of this ship. This isn't just any research ship, is it? Did... your father have something to do with it?"

Tali's shoulders slumped. Her mask hid her more subtle expressions. "It was... a secret project base, separate from the fleet. This is the only one I know that's survived the war intact." Tali drew up to her full height. "The researchers here worked on isolated, disabled geth parts. My... father could be reckless, and he worked with far more. You couldn't even build whole units with what they had here! Nothing here should have been in shape to move, let alone attack us, even if–”

”Even if the Pulse hadn't killed all the geth elsewhere,” Samantha finished quietly. Tali wasn't the only one who flinched.

”These are not ordinary geth. I think that much is clear.” Tali lowered her tone and looked straight at Samantha. ”If I'd thought we'd be in danger I would've never led you here. Please believe me."

Samantha swallowed down her disappointment. She had to swallow again in order to forget the time she'd made Tali laugh so long she'd started to hiccup uncontrollably. This wasn't about their friendship. Tali was a quarian admiral; she had loyalties outside her personal life. Samantha was sure she had had her reasons for omitting information.

"We better keep moving," Samantha said, voice level and neutral, and went to peer into the dark corridor ahead. ”We're not far from the main laboratory.”

She squeezed the pistol in her hand, unable to let go.

 

*

 

Of all the things Vega had been prepared to find in the quarian shipwreck, this hadn't been one of them. Geth. Geth that bled, and twitched, and swarmed. First the Collectors, and now the geth -- all history that didn't need repeating. Hadn't they learned their lessons the first time?

He walked past his troops, checking their condition. Most answered his nod, stern and properly alert after their taste of action. That was the kind of focus he liked to see, and he could glimpse the makings of decent soldiers in some of the rookies, green as they were. Throw them in a couple of more battles and they'd be tanned enough for him to know for sure who could stick it.

His armor lights swept over the walls of the narrow corridor. The quarians liked their ships neat and efficient, he'd gathered that much. No extra space anywhere. All the better; they wouldn't be caught by surprise again if he could help it.

The corridor ended in sturdy quarantine double doors, but Tali made short work of the locking mechanism and showed the way into yet another lab, a hall cut into sections with movable partitions. This one was different, though. When the quarantine doors hissed closed behind them, his sensors detected oxygen. Some of the monitors were switched on, and there was a mechanical hum that he knew to associate with ventilation and research stations in regular use.

"The power's on," Vega pointed out to Tali, who nodded.

"And expertly isolated to only this part of the ship. This is it. Any sign of the fragment, Samantha?"

"I'm detecting the signal, loud and clear." Traynor's eyes were fixed on her omni-tool. She had tried to wipe the blood off her visor, but some spatters remained. "We're approaching the fragment. Estimated distance less than a hundred meters."

"No one go wandering off on your own," Vega spoke up, to remind the troops. "The geth know their way around the ship better than we do. Even if they're not jumping us right now this place has got to be watched. Whoa, Admiral!" He hurried to catch up with Tali and stood in her way. ”We need that scan, right?”

Tali hesitated for a moment before hanging back and letting him lead the way in.

Vega did a quick sweep of the lab, found nothing moving, and signaled an all clear to her and the troops. He kept a little distance from them to make it clear he was still in the lead while he looked around. This set-up was familiar, somehow; terminals, biological samples floating in goo, all the things he would've expected of a medical lab in an Alliance hospital.

"Would you look at this place," Chakwas muttered to herself. "It's like a transplant cloning laboratory."

Tali touched the screen of one of the terminals as she studied it. "See if you can find any research logs. The power has been diverted into specific sub-channels. This place is operating at bare minimum capacity but this kind of shielding needs constant manual finetuning. Someone's been here, very recently."

Vega found himself facing a long tube that housed a collection of thin, intertwined fibres, suspended in thick, transparent goo. "What's all this stuff for? I thought this place was a geth research ship."

"It was, once. It's all been repurposed. I can't find any signs of... These systems haven't been broken into. It looks like... the researchers themselves did this." Tali sounded stricken.

There was something Vega was missing.

"You're looking at a primitive nerve cluster, Lieutenant," Chakwas informed him. She was inspecting the bio-containers scattered throughout the lab. "This laboratory is relatively small, Admiral, but well-maintained. It looks fully capable of growing entire organs, full nervous systems... even rudimentary brains, I imagine."

Garrus picked through the cables to find the central terminal. "From what? Organic matter can't simply be scrounged up from a shipwreck."

"I don't think you'll like the answer, Garrus." Chakwas scanned the bundle of pale organic matter Vega guessed might've been a growing brain, and then walked around the table to Traynor, who jumped when the medical scan swept over her spattered helmet.

"It's quarian, isn't it." Tali didn't make it a question. Her hands had stilled. "That's why we haven't found any bodies here. They've all been..."

"Oh. God. Oh, no," Traynor mumbled. Her gasp wavered. "I'm so sorry, Tali, but it makes sense now. The geth. Why I couldn't detect any sign of their network, why there are no power hubs. The fragment's controlling them, just like it controlled the researchers."

"The Leviathans can control the geth?" Vega threw a sheet back to reveal a geth lying motionless on a slab. It looked scrounged and scraped clean, nothing but an empty armored shell.

"They can control organic beings." Traynor's voice sounded strangled on the comm line. "So they made them. They forced the _quarians_ to make them."

Vega's gaze swerved from the emptied geth to the nerve clusters and other organs growing on the table next to it. _Oh, mi Dios._ Had the mind-controlled researchers somehow known they had been working on their own colleagues? How long had it taken before there were enough flesh-filled geth to take over, and no quarians remained? His stomach that could take a high-drop from atmo any day of the week turned at the thought.

At least it was plain enough where the Leviathans had found geth shells to fill; there had to be thousands lying around unoperational after the war. No one would've noticed if they went missing. They were wreckage rather than corpses.

"Spirits." Garrus looked around the lab, the light of the terminal catching on his splintered helmet. "How many quarians...?"

Chakwas had finished her scans. "Not many individuals at all. Perhaps as few as two or three. This material is cloned many times over."

"It's a cold comfort, Doctor Chakwas." Tali switched off the terminal and swung the shotgun into her hands again. She was holding herself together pretty well, considering. Maybe the familiar gun in her hands helped. It always worked for Vega. "Come on. When we find the fragment we can put an end to this... monstrosity."

Vega's comm crackled. ”Admiral? This is tier five. Come in, Admiral.”

”This is Lieutenant Vega,” he called back, knowing Tali had enough to deal with. ”What's your situation, tier five?”

The line wasn't bad, Vega realized; the guy was just breathing heavily. ”Uh, facing armed geth troops, sir. No contact from Tier four. Request permission to fall back and join Tier six.”

Vega glanced at Tali, who nodded. ”Permission granted. Fall back to the shuttle and tell LT Cortez to start preparing for takeoff. We're almost done here.”

”The shuttle's prepped and ready to go as soon as Tier five gets here,” Cortez himself put in. ”Glad to have the comms back, Mr. Vega. I'll see about finding you another return route in case the geth have cut you off. Have you located the main objectives?”

”We found the main lab. End of the road here.” Vega started walking towards the opposite wall. It followed the curve of the outer hull of the ship; it had to be thin there. He put his rifle away, no longer needing it. ”Either we find the boss fragment in this lab or we trace our steps back.”

”Just make sure you don't find it with your rifle, Mr. Vega.”

_You've kind of run that joke to the ground, Cortez._ ”Copy that.”

_What?_ He heard himself say the words, but they hadn't been what he'd intended. He tried to squeeze the rifle closer, for reassurance. It was no longer in his hands. _When did I put it away? What the hell?_ He opened his mouth but it didn't form the words he wanted. His feet took him closer to the outer wall.

”James?” Cortez had only needed two words to figure it out. ”Everything okay?”

_No. I'm not okay. Tell Tali. I'm still here but I can't fucking say it. Tell Chakwas. Tell someone._ ”Everything's fine here, LT. Prepare the shuttle, we'll be right there.”

There was a pause, probably only a second or so, but it felt like a small eternity. When Cortez finally spoke his voice was quiet in the way it only got when he was upset about something. ”Admiral? You might wanna check on LT Vega.”

”I'm on it, Admiral,” Chakwas piped up before Tali had a chance to respond.

Vega found himself turning slowly to face the others, his back to the wall. His arms fell to his sides, a numbness falling over his whole body. He couldn't move his own hands. It made him feel sick, even more than the geth stuffed with cloned quarian flesh. He was so used to being aware of his own body and knowing what it could do. That certainty was plucked away, easy as that, and he'd barely noticed until it was too late.

Chakwas was running towards him, scanner first.

Something else reached him before she did. _The Leviathan._ Vega felt a rush of information flood his mind like a shockwave, a thousand flashing images and feelings that tucked and pulled mercilessly at his nerves. His body twitched and trembled with it as it settled in, pushing his own awareness thoughtlessly out of the way to make room for another. 

” _Stop! Come no closer._ ” The voice came from his mouth, but it no longer sounded like him, distorted and booming.

Trapped and faced with insurmountable odds in his own mind, Vega was forced to retreat, to lie low and bide his time while the thing spoke through him.

” _Lesser beings, you have interfered out of ignorance. You would sabotage our attempts to protect you. You would allow the cycle to begin anew._ ”

”You call this protecting our interests?” Vega had never heard Tali so furious. ”This is _obscene_! It's a mockery of my people, and the geth, and everything we achieved! You treated them like the Reapers treated the protheans!”

Vega distantly felt his own hand make a dismissive gesture. ” _There is no comparison. Technology will always seek to destroy organic life. That is the cycle. The Intelligence cannot be allowed to gestate again._ ”

Traynor went to Tali's side, her eyes sharp and fixed on Vega. She was trembling but held the eye contact, looking somehow past Vega at the thing in his head. ”You're not just talking about the geth. You mean the mass relays.”

” _Tools to bring you closer to the start of the cycle. They are not yours to rebuild._ ” 

Vega's feet walked him along the wall. From the jumbled mess in his head, the knowledge that he suddenly shared, he managed to pick out a few visions: There was a data terminal right outside this wall, sitting shielded against the outer hull of the Maquia. It monitored sensors that picked up on planetary developments. That was where the voice was flooding from. That had to be where the fragment was. Right behind him on the wall were the power cords leading to the sensor terminal. But how to tell the others? He could still vaguely feel his arms; maybe he could force that connection into movement. Vega steeled himself the way he did before a drop into a combat zone. He might get a chance to steal his control back for a moment if the others distracted the thing in his head.

Tali's head inclined. It was a small change but familiar enough that Vega recognized it: someone had hailed her on the comm, closed frequency. He couldn't hear her reply, but she nodded.

Traynor studied him, eyes narrowed. She looked fascinated rather than intimidated. Her hand worked on her omni-tool. Vega hoped she was running all the diagnostics she had in her arsenal. ”Then what is it that you want from us? What do you want us to do?”

Somehow, Vega could feel the Leviathan stop and consider her. Its attention was shared by others; new images, bright and burning, flickered at the edge of his awareness. Each one of those lights represented something ancient and daunting, a thousandfold of what his mind could handle; if he focused too hard on any one of them it'd overwhelm him. He did his best to ignore them, and concentrated all his effort into his right hand. It was his own goddamn hand. He should've been able to make it move. Nothing to it. Just give his buddies a target to hit, and he'd be rid of the thing frying his brain.

” _Survive,_ ” the Leviathan said with his mouth. The word echoed in the laboratory. It trembled through the open comm line, through the hull of the ship, and its conviction was absolute.

Vega's hand twitched. He concentrated on wrenching back control so hard it hurt. _Come on, come on, come on!_

”But what--” Traynor started, refusing to be intimidated.

Vega's armored palm banged against the cord bundle behind him with as much force as he could give. He yelled in his mind, pushing the words towards his stolen mouth. _The sensor terminal! Hit it! Hit the sensors! That's where this thing is! Shoot it and get it out of my fucking head! Get out of my head!_ His vision blurred with the overload of noise and data that crowded him. He didn't stop yelling.

The wall behind him shook once, and then again, making his body stumble over. Vega couldn't break the fall, but his armor blunted it. Traynor caught him before he landed face first, her omni-tool momentarily forgotten.

”Everybody brace yourselves!” Tali shouted, somewhere in the middle of the noise, and the ship shook once more. Traynor hooked her arm under his, and held on.

Vega grasped some hold on his senses, and realized he knew what was going on. He knew the feel and sound. Someone was firing a mass accelerator cannon at the Maquia.

The hull of the ship burst open with the next direct hit, and the burned power cords spat electricity at them. The air rushed out, but Tali's warning had been heeded; the only thing flying out with the oxygen was lab equipment, further widening the hole in the wall. If Traynor hadn't turned him towards the hole when she herself turned to look, Vega wouldn't have made out the gleam of Alliance blue through it.

_The shuttle. Cortez. He found a new route all right._

Another hit, and it was a good one. Vega could imagine the sensor terminal shielding giving out to expose the fragment, could almost hear it break open and spatter against the side of the ship at last. A deafening silence filled his head. He shivered with relief, and although every inch of him ached, the ache was his own.

”Target down, Admiral. Ready for extraction,” Cortez said on the comm line.

It hurt to focus his gaze, but Vega did it anyway. The side of the shuttle slid into view. Cortez must've pulled one hell of a sharp turn. The door opened to the cargo hold and someone moved closer to the doorway to assist. It was a long leap, but nothing he hadn't done before.

”Lemme up,” he told Traynor. His words slurred together.

She moved with him, refusing to let go. He became aware of Chakwas on his right, hovering nearby. Probably scanning him. He just hoped she'd got the scan that counted.

Most of the troops hung back to secure Tali's extraction. Garrus gave her a little push to help with the leap into the shuttle and followed close behind. Vega's steps weren't steady, but they didn't need to be as long as they took him towards the shuttle.

”Go on, doc,” he told Chakwas, and shoved at her.

She shot him a worried glance before taking the leap. It fell a little short; Tali caught her arm and pulled her the rest of the way. They hastily made way for Traynor, who had overestimated the distance, flying into the hold in a mess of limbs.

Vega's vision swam, but he didn't need precision anyway. He didn't give himself any time to think about it, he simply took the leap, putting all the strength left in his wobbly legs into it. Chakwas shouted something. He didn't catch it. The shuttle's floor was solid under his hands.

Vega realized he'd shut his eyes only after they blinked open at the familiar lurch. The shuttle was moving out of the gravitational pull of the planet. He was half-lying down in his seat, with Chakwas moving in to flash lights in his eyes the moment he stirred. Garrus had taken off his busted helmet and leaned heavily on the wall nearby. The air smelled sharply of Medi-gel. Vega tried to turn his viciously pounding head to see if they were all present and accounted for.

Cortez had his back to him in his pilot seat, but he seemed okay, concentrating on bringing them out of atmo. If Vega had been able to stand in the first place the sudden relief would've dropped him down. As it was he only slumped further.

Tali stood behind the pilot seat. She raised her omni-tool arm and turned on the speaker. ”This is Admiral Tali'Zorah calling all quarian vessels in Falthis-8 orbit. The target is clear. You may fire at will.”

”Tali?” Traynor asked softly. This wasn't a move they'd discussed beforehand.

She was ignored. Tali's mask gave little away, but her voice did. It was low and trembled with cold fury. ”Yes, squad leader. Destroy the Maquia. Burn it to the ground.”


	8. Chapter 8

Steve might've felt less bad about shooting holes in the long-lost quarian ship if he'd known Tali planned to blow it up anyway. Not that he'd had time to think about it when her order had come through the commline, frantic, cutting through James's voice, that raw yell that still echoed in his ears. _Hit the sensors! Hit it! Cortez, find and destroy the sensor unit on the outer hull of the ship! I'm removing the shielding now! Let it out of my fucking head! Get out of my head! Get out of my head!_

He was glad he'd only got a glimpse of the fragment seconds before it was destroyed. If the Leviathans had seen him coming, if they'd frozen the controls and dropped the transport like a dead weight before he could even aim the cannons... No, he couldn't feel anything but relief upon seeing the burning ruin they left behind.

Thanks to the inertial dampeners, he knew the flip in his gut when they sped up and away was psychological. Sometimes he missed the physical experience of flying in a sleek fighter that didn't have the artificial gravity and mass effect fields to remove the shake and rattle. He wanted to _punch_ out of there, wanted to have the certainty of escape that only an engine boost jostling his bones could give.

Tali's hand grasped the back of his seat, the way LC Williams sometimes did. "Well done, Cortez. We're ready to head back to the Normandy. Did you... secure the databank information?"

"Yes, ma'am. Transferring it to you now."

From the corner of his eye he saw Tali's omni-tool light up and dim again. "Thank you," she said in a hushed tone, and turned back to the cargo hold to speak with Dr. Chakwas.

Steve wasn't the greatest at reading quarians, but he could swear something as heavy as regret shadowed her, despite the success of their mission. Traynor was quiet, too, huddled over her omni-tool. For once, both Garrus and James seemed to heed Chakwas's advice and let the Medi-gel do its magic. They had the answers they'd set out to find, but Steve could see them sprouting new questions in the hush. He had been here before, in the strange place between contentment and worry. He knew all too well that beating impossible odds didn't always feel like a victory.

By the time they docked with the Normandy, James had found his voice again, at least.

"I can walk to the medbay just fine," he insisted, and immediately lurched into the wall when Chakwas let go of him. Several of the young soldiers disembarking from the shuttle twitched towards him but stopped short of touching range -- out of respect, Steve figured.

He'd felt the same pull to help. He made himself sit back down and switch the controls off properly. James was in good hands.

"You currently have the spatial awareness of a mineral sample, Lieutenant," Chakwas said, gently. "Your feet might be up to the task but your brain is not. Lean on me, please."

James found some of that obstinate grin of his to shine on her. "Well, since you ask so nicely, Cariño."

"Hardly the first time you've been compared to a rock, Mr. Vega," Steve couldn't resist throwing in as he finished up in the cockpit.

"What's that, Esteban?" James raised his voice. "Can't hear you over the Leviathan hotline buzzing in my ears."

Steve wasn't really surprised to hear him joking about it.

"I'll come by the medbay when she's done with you," he promised, and clapped James on the back when he walked past him and out of the shuttle.

James gave him an honest look, real gratitude showing through all the posturing. "Okay, man. Catch you later."

He dropped his posturing around Steve like it was nothing. It didn't use to give him pause. It shouldn't have given him pause now.

Chakwas steered James away, and the med personnel followed her with the rest of the wounded. She probably couldn't wait to get him into her lab so she could ask him a thousand questions, and let her scanners ask another thousand besides.

Steve touched Traynor's arm before she could hurry out. "Hey, you need me for anything?"

They both glanced over at Tali, who was talking to Garrus and the uninjured troops. She seemed to be okay on her feet. Steve trusted that Chakwas would be knocking on her door as soon as she was done with James to make sure.

"Not unless you have secret superpowers of data compilation," Traynor said, overselling her cheer. She looked stressed in a way Steve had never seen before; directionless, somehow. "Better comm Tali a little later about a proper debriefing. Give her a chance to figure out what to tell Hackett first."

Steve nodded, noting that she ducked away the moment Tali turned to meet her gaze. "Everything all right?" he asked, more quietly.

Traynor's face played a quick medley of conflicted feelings before settling on a sad, tight smile. "We'll see. I'm going to find a quiet corner somewhere. I need... I need to process. And compile data. Lots of data."

"Sure," Steve said. He could understand the need for some space after a bombshell of a mission like that.

Just to pretend it was and could only ever be a friendly gesture, he clapped her on the back, too.

Having been dismissed until full debriefing could commence, Steve headed to the crew quarters to wash off the Falthis-8 dust. When he emerged from the shower with a fresh uniform and a clearer head he saw that Hackett's soldiers had wandered through the Normandy to find company and were now busy trying not to appear star-struck. There wasn't a lot of standing on ceremony aboard this particular ship, though. One of Normandy's nav officers already had pictures of his kids out.

"Cute," the soldier looking at them commented, in the unsure tone of someone who hadn't quite reached the age when people showing off their kids was a regular thing.

"Little monsters they are. Eating me and their mother out of house and home. Can't wait for that shore leave. It's been way too long."

"Yeah, I hear you. Gonna be some serious decimation of booze reserves tonight." The soldier had a shaved head and a serious look in his eyes. His fatigues had been cut above his left knee to make room for a Medi-gel patch. The wound couldn't have reached bone; he seemed to have no trouble walking around. "Hey man, any chance you could point me towards the medbay?"

"Follow me," Steve told him, "I was just heading there."

The soldier's name turned out to be Maynes. He was Earthborn, and his vocabulary suggested he had been drafted out of a UNAS university. Steve wondered if today had been only the second time he'd ever seen combat. Bio-modified geth and mind-controlling ancient aliens were a lot to take, even for a veteran. Maynes seemed calm and alert, not freaked out. He might have stumbled upon a genuine career.

The door of the medbay was closed, so they found a bench and waited. Liara T'Soni walked past twice, glancing up from a data sheet, pretending not to be waiting, too.

Chakwas was being thorough. Steve told himself that was good. What had been done to his friend's mind back there? He'd seen Shepard right after she had spoken with the Leviathans, and she'd been as close to shaken as he'd ever seen her. Her eyes had been bloodshot, like James's, like her body had been straining to comprehend what she'd learned. Maybe, if Steve had been a little faster on his feet getting back to the shuttle and following Tali's signal, maybe then he could've spared James some of it. Dwelling on might-have-beens never helped, but Steve couldn't help himself.

"Leg giving you trouble?" he asked his companion when he realized the silence had stretched on for quite a while.

Maynes had leaned his arms on his thighs, which was an answer in and of itself. "No, sir. Heard this was where they took Lieutenant Vega. I wanted to see if I could have a word before we're ordered off the ship."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll get your chance. I'm told he's hard to miss." Steve couldn't quite keep a straight face.

Maynes chuckled like he'd been found out, and Steve thought, _oh, I see_.

He glanced at the medbay door again. It remained closed, giving him ample opportunity to dive back into his thoughts again.

Steve had an inkling as to why he was indulging in might-have-beens. He was aware something between him and James was unravelling, becoming strange to both of them. After the war, after the loss of Commander Shepard, he had expected a gradual weakening of their bond; a separate mission becoming several, and then, eventually, the permanent reassignment away from the Normandy. He had tried to prepare himself for having their daily chatter over gun mods turn into a datapad message once in a while.

Instead, here they were. Steve knew the bonds between soldiers at wartime, the intensity that sometimes didn't disperse when it ought to. Add the intimacy of sex to it, no matter how casual, and it only complicated matters. No wonder James seemed confused; Steve had never known him to do anything halfway. It was all or nothing with him. That meant it was up to Steve to stay grounded and be the friend James needed him to be to get through this to somewhere stable again, even if there was a part of him that didn't truly want that. A part of him that held stupid, selfish hope.

Steve ran his palm over his face. He felt like a cliché. He felt old.

The door hissed open. Both Steve and Maynes stood up expectantly.

Chakwas still had her scanner switched on. "And make sure you get something to eat. Those blood sugar levels are still--"

James had both hands up to either placate her or shoo off yet another scan. "Yeah, I got it, I got it. Thanks, doc."

"I shall compile and forward this data to involved parties, then," Chakwas said by way of goodbye. She couldn't hide the note of excitement in her voice.

Steve couldn't tell whether James looked better or worse than before. He usually had to be either missing entire limbs or knocked out before his injuries became obvious. "Everything okay? She kept you long enough."

"Yeah, 'm fine. She says it's like I've done the brainwork of a dozen professors in five minutes, something like that. Looks like you gotta feed me," James announced, and threw his left arm around Steve's shoulders. Not many people could do it so easily, but James had the reach for it, and the height, just barely.

"Can I throw a beer in there for you, sir?" Maynes's salute was slow and ironic; the casual atmosphere of the Normandy had caught up with him fast. "Private Maynes. I--"

"Hauled a geth off your ass on that quarian ship." James nodded, a bit thrown upon noticing him. "Yeah. At ease, private. Looks like you're back on your feet."

"Looking forward to staying that way, Lieutenant. I wanted to thank you in person. Never engaged with a geth before. Appreciate your help, sir."

James shrugged. "No problem. Stick around and you'll see all kinds of weird shit. Don't let it throw you. You serious about that beer?"

Maynes's expression opened up, becoming hopeful. "Yes, sir, absolutely. We've got a case or two back aboard the dreadnought. You're welcome to join in, once everything's wrapped up here."

His eyes strayed to Steve for a fleeting second.

James missed it. "Yeah, I might do that. Later."

Maynes took being dismissed gracefully. "I'll save you a pack, sir. Thanks again."

He gave another cheerfully half-assed salute, and left.

"Gunning for you pretty hard there," Steve pointed out. Someone had to; it was too obvious. "Cute, too. Why not let him treat you for a couple of beers?"

James made a little surprised noise, a sign that he was finally clued in. He turned his head to give Steve a toothy grin. "Cute, huh? Did I miss a chance to play wingman, Esteban?"

"A bit too young for me," Steve said under his breath. _But not for you._ It was more a reminder to himself than a remark to James.

"Aw, don't gimme that _viejito_ shit, come on." James jostled him; an affectionate wrestling move.

That made things easier, somehow, more familiar. Steve clung to that, and told himself: _my best buddy_.

"Don't _you_ act all coy now, just because it's a guy hitting on you."

"It ain't that," James protested, but with a surprising lack of heat. "Don't think I could go for just anyone, though."

"Oh, well, you got me there, Mr. Vega. I, of course, will fire at any willing guy around."

"No, it's not what I-- It's not about that, either. I guess I need that trust. That understanding. Y'know?"

James stared at the empty hallway, gnawing at his lip. Steve wondered where his thoughts had strayed. James's arm flexed against the back of Steve's neck as his hand closed and opened around a shoulder. Either holding him closer, or letting go. Steve couldn't figure out which.

Their omni-tools beeped at the same time, making them shift in order to check them. Incoming ship-wide message: the commanding officer was on deck. Debriefing was set an hour from now, with her in attendance.

"Ash," James said, visibly brightening up. "Finally. Bet she's glad to be back."

"She'll be glad she didn't have to take all this to the Council," Steve mused. The Collectors were bad enough; geth were supposed to be off the volatile menu of galactic politics.

James's face fell at the prospect of bringing her more bad news. Steve steered his wide frame towards the elevator to shake his mind off it.

"We've got time to feed you before that, though. I think there might even be real vegetables in the grub today."

James took a new hold on his shoulder. He was trying to be subtle about needing help staying on his feet; Steve helped as best he could. "Sold. Hey, you think _you_ could find a few beers somewhere?"

"Afraid you'll have to visit the admiral's dreadnought for those, Mr. Vega."

Somehow, Steve didn't think he would.

 

*

The more screens Samantha opened, the more she needed, just to have all known cards on the table, as it were. She had to pick her hand and win, if not the game, then at least a round, but her mind faltered at the first choice. The task was just too vast. The variables were too numerous. The Leviathans had the ability to make new cards at any time, and time was a luxury they possessed on a scale no one else in the universe could match, not the asari, not the rachni, no one. She was an insect trying to comprehend their metaphysics.

Despite the incredible amount of new data her programs were slowly sifting through, the growing list of tiny revelations, Samantha hesitated. She was trapped by her own insistent perseverance and the galaxy-wide need looming over her head. This couldn't be done, and it needed to be done. There had to be a way out of that self-perpetuating circle.

Company usually did the trick, but there she ran into more impossibilities. She thought briefly about sneaking Gabby a note somehow to let her know she hadn't forgotten her. It wasn't plausible, of course; she might be able to fake a need for an interview but there was no official reason imaginable why she would pass a so-called terrorist private notes, let alone get any word back. The thought of Gabby in her cell brought forth a dull pang that lingered. Samantha missed her so terribly, missed her dry observations and level-headed manner of compartmentalizing and keeping to the task at hand. Gabby had once said that if she couldn't crawl into maintenance ducts and get her hands dirty once in a while she'd lose all ability to theorize about the function of the engine as a whole: one thing balanced out the other.

That might be something to try, something that might break the pattern of her thoughts. After a moment's hesitation, Samantha resolutely closed off her omni-tool and its dozens of screens and went to find Garrus.

He was a creature of habit, and Samantha wasn't surprised to find him staring at the opened panel in the main battery, trying to find something to tweak. His right mandible twitched in incomprehension when he saw her. A smell of Medi-gel hung about him, but he'd removed the bandage Chakwas had plastered to the side of his neck. The residue of the shotgun blast showed in raw blue undertones to his skin.

"Hi," she said before the door had closed behind her, and summoned forth her best smile. "Busy?"

"Just with my thoughts. What can I do for you, Traynor?"

Samantha wordlessly handed him her excuse for being there.

"Ah." Garrus took the pistol and gave it a quick lookover. "I was starting to miss that little backup Carnifex of mine."

"Little? That's a matter of opinion." Samantha smothered a nervous laugh by biting down on her lip. "But then again, I don't carry an arsenal around on a daily basis, so what do I know."

Garrus gave a noncommittal click of teeth.

Samantha grasped her resolve with both hands. "Which is something I'd like to change. The knowing something part. Not about the whole arsenal, just one pistol, or thereabouts. And I know there's a range that's open for the crew, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I'd hate to start off on the wrong foot--"

Garrus lifted his hands. "Okay, I think I got it. You want a primer."

"Yes. Yes, exactly. So that maybe next time, there's a little less flinching. And I won't have to steal anyone else's gun."

Garrus glanced at the pistol he'd set on top of the panel. "Yeah, I don't recommend you borrow this particular pistol again. It's fixed with a custom scope; something Cortez dug up for me. Makes it a little too heavy for human hands, but precision's where it shines. Call it a personal preference."

"That's... kind of the reason why I'm asking you," Samantha said, warming to the topic. She might not have been an expert on gun mods but she recognized a fellow geek, no matter what the subject. "And not a certain mountain of muscle we both know."

"I happen to be ripped underneath all the scar tissue," Garrus declared, deadpan. "All right. Are you... good to go now, or...?"

"Now's good," Samantha said, stomping on the few flutters of trepidation.

Garrus practically jumped on the chance to demolish a few targets, and show Samantha a few pointers in between. He grew a bit snappy and sarcastic at her long-winded explanations that she couldn't help but burst into every time she made a mistake, but she could understand that. He took sharp-shooting seriously. His focus steadied her somehow. What was more, she soon realized she was showered with the well-meant, amused kind of sarcasm, which was just a sign that Garrus was relaxing in her company.

It turned out they'd both wanted a distraction. 

Samantha managed to bite back her curiosity until they were walking back from the range. It had been a good session. Samantha's hands ached from gripping the pistol too hard, and she enjoyed that little reminder that she'd pushed herself to do something new.

"What were you thinking about, at the main battery?"

Garrus glanced at her, his eyes flickering with something like irritation. "Aren't you supposed to start that kind of question with 'if you don't mind me asking'?"

"Oh, I thought you knew by now that that's always implied when it's me asking," Samantha felt brave enough to quip, and Garrus gave an amused noise, boosting her confidence further.

"Yeah. I can be a slow learner sometimes." Garrus chattered his backteeth thoughtfully, and looked at the walls. "Nothing I should be thinking about. That about covers it."

Samantha hesitated before making a stab in the dark. She spoke in a low voice, for his sake as well as her own. "You didn't know Tali was going to order that ship to be destroyed, either."

Garrus slowly shook his head. He took his time answering. "She doesn't like to talk about her orders these days. Her people. Her plans when it comes to any of that. I don't know how to ask."

"Or if you should ask at all?"

"Yeah. Exactly." Garrus sighed through his teeth. "Maybe I should try letting her shoot me again. It's a unique starter, at least."

Samantha opened her mouth, but closed it again, speechless. And she had thought she had figured out the darkest depths of his sense of humour.

"I wouldn't actually do it," Garrus hurried to explain, somewhat less than convincingly.

"Well, if you don't work it out soon, I'm going to assault her with musicals and asari liqueur and take my chances," Samantha declared, with confidence she didn't truly possess.

"Who knows, that might work." Garrus cleared his throat and his mandibles trembled awkwardly. He appeared to run out of sarcastic remarks.

The omni-tool came to his rescue, informing both of them of LC Williams's arrival. She'd made good time; either she'd taken no time to rest between leaving and returning, or the meeting with the Council had been very brief. Samantha didn't really like either of the possibilities.

"She'll be heading straight for the mess first if I know Ashley at all," Garrus said. "Land on her feet and get her bearing before diving into the politics."

"You're going to ambush her?"

Garrus looked straight ahead, his mandibles still. "If something's going on on Palaven, she's my best chance of hearing about it. Before anyone adds political filters to it."

Samantha fixed her mouth firmly shut and followed him to the mess hall, curious to a morbid degree.

Garrus had called it wrong; they found Williams stepping out of Liara's quarters, frowning over her omni-tool screen. She looked severe and tired, her steps heavy with tight focus.

"Hi, Garrus," she greeted him, and glanced back at the screen. "New scars. Something on your mind?"

"You know what I'm going to ask, Ashley," he said more quietly.

That made her dim the omni-tool screen and look him in the eye. "You want it now? I don't have that much for you, I'm sorry. Things are hectic on the Council Station."

"Just lay it on me."

Williams glanced about, but no one else was listening. She met Samantha's eyes, but her presence was apparently not an issue. "All right. From what I gathered, the restoration of Palaven is going slowly. Not for the lack of volunteers; there are just no resources. And your people are not unique in that regard, by the way. No one's getting the kind of shipments their home planets need, not until we fix the raider situation or get those relays working again. Ideally both. The only way to make any kind of headway is through the black market, and black market prices."

"The Hierarchy could never get that approved on a larger scale," Garrus scoffed.

"That's what it looks like, yeah. The Volus are sorting it out, but I didn't really ask about the specifics. Galactic economics make my head ache." Williams relaxed a little. She stretched her neck, which made a creaking noise. "Liara filled me in on Tali's scouting mission. Sounds like you've been busy."

"More like we've got what we need to get busy," Samantha corrected.

Williams's eyes bored expectantly into her.

"Ma'am," Samantha added belatedly, knowing it wasn't what the LC had been after. She somehow held her ground. What else could she do? She had nothing to offer her.

"I've got a route I need you to check out," Williams changed the subject. "To make sure there are enough buoys nearby to keep regular comm contact."

Garrus made a surprised noise. "Even though the Leviathans are listening in?"

Williams broke into a tight-lipped smile. "It needs to look subtle, but that's the point of it. A cover mission. The Council agreed the rogue Collectors make a great diversion while we do all this Cold War crap on the hush." Her smile quirked into something more wry. "They were being pretty sensible, actually. Or at least it made sense to me. It's not going to shake the so-called truce with the Leviathans if we decide we're done playing nice with the bugs who kidnapped our people and turned them into baby Reaper food." Her tone turned venomous; Samantha felt a cold, hateful flash within herself in response.

"It shouldn't take long to check the comm route, ma'am," she said. "The buoys are mostly intact. It's a simple case of connect-the-dots."

Williams sighed and glanced at her omni-tool hand. "I still have to see what the Alliance thinks about using their best ship and the only human Spectre for decoy missions. Hackett might be okay with it, but there are some Earth Firsters who aren't gonna be happy."

"You don't sound too broken up about the prospect of hunting down some Collectors," Garrus pointed out with a turian smirk.

"With no red tape, and a Council license to play it as loud as I like? Hell yeah, I jumped on it." Williams leaned her palm against her hip in a jaunty pose. "I'm not gonna make it easy for them to say no. I've got some salarian STGs on the line with good tracking info. And Liara's got a pretty good spy network in place. We'll find those bug bastards and finish the job."

Samantha found herself nodding approvingly along with Garrus. It was hard not to get swept along with Williams's excitement.

"A bit of payback's not just a believable cover, ma'am. I'd say it's only fair," she ventured, thinking of all the missing faces on Horizon.

_A bit of payback. What goes around..._

Something slid into place and lit up a long-dark corner of Samantha's mind. "Dr. Bryson," she blurted out, right over Garrus. "Is she still onboard?"

Williams gestured over her shoulder towards Liara's door. Samantha ran past her with a hurried, "Excuse me, ma'am".

Luckily Bryson answered the door; Liara might've stopped her on her tracks. Samantha pushed in at the first noise of assent, her omni-tool already switched on.

"I need your help, Dr. Bryson," she declared, _demanded_. "I need -- I need a galaxy-wide map of Leviathan signals, taking into account this new data I've compiled, and I need to identify the strongest receiving and transmitting points of those signals."

Bryson stared at her, caught between annoyance and, Samantha hoped, curiosity. "Anything else while I'm at it, Specialist Traynor?"

"It's a huge undertaking, I know, I know, I'm aware of that, I'm sorry," Samantha babbled, her fingers tapping on the projected screen. She couldn't look at Bryson or she'd lose her nerve. "But we've actually got a significant amount of markers now, so it's not impossible. And I'm not -- It doesn't have to be a complete map. Just -- help me find an artifact unlike any we've seen before. Something like twenty, twenty-five times the average capability of dataflow should do it. I'll get you the specific number later. The bigger the better, but I should be able to get you a baseline..."

She halted, becoming aware that Liara was standing next to her, calmly making notes on a datapad.

"I'm-- I'm sorry, Dr. T'Soni, I..."

"You've had a breakthrough in your research into protecting our communications, haven't you, Traynor?" Liara's smile was encouraging. "Please, go on. I'd like to help in any way I can."

_Because you need to secure your enormous information gathering operation,_ Samantha thought. _No, Liara. I might've figured out how we could go on the offensive instead._

It was her favourite part of any strategy game; turning the tables and switching play modes without warning. She looked from Bryson's sceptical frown to Liara's smile, and hoped she was on the right track. An abrupt change in strategy either won the game, or in quick succession, lost it.

 

*

 

Despite the lingering ache, Vega was glad he could plead his Leviathan-shaken head and excuse himself out of the several meetings and debriefings that followed their info retrieval mission on Falthis-8. Ash was back, which meant galaxy-wide post-war politics got thrown in, and Vega really couldn't give less of a shit. He'd hear about it when Hackett and the others came up with a plan for their next move. Until then it was all talk, and whatever it was that kept Chakwas, Bryson and Traynor behind closed doors. Chakwas had the scans of his brain, Tali had his report of events, and Ash had the sense to do more than theorize about it all. That was enough to reassure him.

Days passed, and he took advantage of the free time and the distraction of his superiors and got a wall bar installed near his workbench in the shuttle bay. Cortez had made some disapproving noises at first but Vega soon managed to talk him into trying it out. They usually worked out early in the morning; barely awake, barely able to form sentences. It was a good way to start the day. Since Cortez had developed a habit of making himself busy for the rest of the day, it was a ready excuse to spend time alone with him. Vega couldn't tell if Cortez was really avoiding him, but it sure felt like it.

Before Vega could figure out a way to ask him what had crawled up his butt lately, Cortez volunteered a reason himself over a shared water bottle.

"I've been reading the datalogs from Falthis-8," he said. He made it sound borderline criminal. "You know, the ones I found."

"Okay." Vega poured some water over his head, hoping the coolness might soothe the throbbing in his skull. Damn Leviathans. Like it wasn't enough his dreams had become weird and incomprehensible ever since he'd had that choir of alien voices in his brain, they had to give him these pounding headaches during the day, too.

Cortez got stuck looking at him for a moment before he found his train of thought again. He didn't seem to be wholly awake yet. "Yeah. It's mostly geth research. Pretty advanced. Too advanced for me, at any rate." He sighed, and sucked his lower lip into his mouth. "I probably should've deleted them off my omni-tool right after I forwarded them to Admiral Tali'Zorah. But they haven't come up in any of the debriefings. She hasn't mentioned any data recoveries. I don't know. Something about it bothers me."

"That's what's eating at you? That Tali's forgotten to file a report?"

He got the gentle jab of an elbow that he'd expected. "Come on. It's not about procedure. This is the quarians and the geth we're talking about here. You don't think they might be up to something?"

"I think the shuttle's working too well and you've got too much time on your hands, mi amigo," Vega said, and meant it. He knew how Cortez's mind worked. If he didn't get enough of a workload he went looking for things to fixate on. As far as Vega could tell he was on the prowl for distractions now.

"You're not about to suggest we go through another round, are you?" Cortez rolled his shoulders back. "You coaxed my twelve reps to fifteen already, Mr. Vega. You'll make me pull a muscle at this rate."

"Hey, I'm game if you are," Vega said before he could think about it. It had been that long, and he'd always liked the way Cortez smelled right after a workout; clean sweat, if there was such a thing. Maybe his timing wasn't the greatest, mid-morning when the crew was all up and about, but at least they hadn't hit the showers yet.

Cortez gave him the same evaluating sideways look he'd given him when they'd first started doing this. It still held the same uneasy tingle of expectation that shot straight to Vega's groin. "Yeah. Okay."

"Okay?"

Cortez dropped his towel on the bench and got up. "Come along, then."

Vega followed his sure stride.

The stagnant air of the maintenance closet nearest to the shuttle bay had become familiar, and promising. Vega breathed it in, lungful at a time. The darkness didn't even matter; he knew where everything was, where he was, where Cortez had him pinned. Bumping into doors and corners while they tried to fit their bodies inside had used to make them laugh. There was a kind of dirty thrill in doing something secret in the dark. There had always been an element of hiding to sex, Vega realized, ever since he was a teenager; it had never really ended.

He couldn't laugh, couldn't even smile this time. When Cortez crowded him and bodily pushed him into the dark he was wired with need. It hadn't _really_ been that long, but something in him disagreed vehemently. It took his breath away when Cortez opened his fatigues.

"Tell me what you want," Cortez told him, a gentle command.

Fuck. Commands put Vega right where Cortez wanted him. He grabbed Cortez's hand and showed him.

The anticipation didn't lose its hold when Cortez turned him around in the narrow space and breathed against his shoulder. One hand steadied him by the waist, one hand pushed under and palmed and wrapped around and yes, yes, God yes. Cortez's hand was cool, but it soon stole heat. He didn't fumble around, his pace steady and grip demanding from the start, just the way he needed.

Vega couldn't laugh, but he couldn't be quiet either, telling Cortez to go faster even when he didn't really want him to. Telling him not to hold back, that he couldn't hold back. He might've been mumbling in Spanish, he didn't know, and Cortez understood him all the same.

"I've got you," Cortez told him, breath hot and stubble scratching against the shell of his ear.

His hand moved from Vega's waist to his chest, not pushing under the shirt. As he held him, he kissed the side of his neck. Not a making-out-while-jerking-you-off kiss. Just a kiss, sweet and simple, and suddenly Vega shuddered at it.

"I've got you," Cortez repeated his promise. His lips nudged the collar of Vega's shirt.

Vega came apart in his grip, squeezing his eyes tightly shut until he saw bright spots. Not that it made a difference in the dark. He kept on shuddering, his body thrumming beyond his control, but it was so good. This time, the loss of control was good. It was just what he'd needed, he realized; to hand himself safely over to Cortez so he could finally let go.

He became faintly aware of an omni-tool's soft signal noise and muted glow, and Cortez's hold on him falling away.

"Cortez. Yes, of course, Lieutenant Commander. What is it?" Cortez sounded out of breath, but he was rapidly gathering himself. He took two steps back, and turned around, as if Vega needed the privacy.

Vega told himself he wasn't, couldn't be disappointed at the loss of contact. It wasn't a big closet; it was easier to do the quick clean-up and zip-up with only one person there.

"Yes, ma'am. On my way now." Cortez gave him a glance, gesturing towards the elevator. He didn't look entirely steady, his eyes unfocused and dark. "I have to go. The LC's called me up to CIC."

"Right now?" Vega wet his lower lip. "I could--"

Cortez waved his hand dismissively. "It's okay. Put it on the tab. I gotta go."

He took a deep breath that trembled at the end and walked away in a quickening pace.

When Vega's own omni-tool lit up it was a welcome distraction.

"James," Ash said, which told him she wasn't calling him in the middle of a meeting with the Alliance brass. "Something's come up. You might want to join us in the briefing room. Some new salarian relay experts just arrived, and a whole squad of asari commandos is on its way. I'd appreciate some familiar faces."

"Asari commandos? Who pulled them out of Thessia?" Vega kicked the closet door closed behind him. "Okay, Ash, you got my attention. I'll be there."

"Traynor insisted that LT Cortez had to be present. No idea what she's got up her sleeve. I just commed him. Are you in the shuttle bay, too?"

Vega fumbled for a reply. "Uh... Yeah. Workout. Y'know."

"Just come up when you're done." Ash ended the call.

For some reason, Vega hadn't been able to summon up even the most basic bullshitting skills. His brain had totally short-circuited. It wasn't even that he'd just gotten a quick handjob in the maintenance closet; it was that kiss, that strange little kiss on the side of his neck. He could still feel it, an echo of a touch. What the hell had that been about?

He stumbled into the shower, and hoped that the asari commando team had brought with them a mission that could put the rifle back into his hands and take his mind off things he couldn't figure out.


End file.
